


Black Heart

by Liena67



Series: From the end a new beginning [6]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Adlock, F/M, Love, Passion, Sadism, Serial Killer, Sex, dangerous moment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-11
Updated: 2018-04-17
Packaged: 2019-04-21 17:05:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 20
Words: 33,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14289402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liena67/pseuds/Liena67
Summary: This story is the first of my long tales that represents a hypothetical fifth and sixth season of SherlockBBC, which continues along the path already drawn from the original series, as my POV.In “Black Heart” Sherlock will begin to live that still unexplored part of himself and will face a case that will touch him closely, to the hunt of a particularly sadistic and manic serial killer."Figuring out who wins on the other is really a feat and he realizes that it's just what they both like. They challenge each other continually in anything, in any situation and field, they have done it since they know each other and it’s their favorite game apparently""The waiting rooms of a hospital in the intensive ward are the place where despair and anxiety sometimes touch each other with hand, a thick blanket like a fog that squeezes the hearts and souls of those who wait to know if their life will still be the same”Booktrailer in the first chapter





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story, although in the history of the series is inserted after my one-shots, is actually the first I wrote. You can read this story without having read the previous one-shots but there is a path that I created and then I would advise you to read the previous ones first. When I started it, I thought I was just writing about the story of Sherlock and Irene and how I wanted it and how I felt I wanted to develop it. I didn’t know yet the world of fanfiction, I had never read one, I felt only the need to pull out of my head these continuous images.  
> Only after writing the first chapters, seeing that maybe something good could be born, I decided to create a real yellow novel, so I later inserted the case between the chapters already written. That is why the first chapter doesn't begin with the presentation of the case, as instead we normally have been accustomed with the tv series. In the following stories I have always started with the presentation of the case.  
> My stories are definitely much more noir than the original series, as far as cases are concerned.  
> In “Black Heart” are described, in an extremely detailed way, scenes of the crime of a sadist, and there is also a description of a sex scene, and that is why the content has the mature rating  
> If in some chapters you seem to see some reminiscent of the series... please go ahead, because I promise you, everything, every detail, will have its own meaning and reason when you arrive at the last chapter.  
> The story was initially written in Italian, which is my native language, and now I am translating it into English (forgive errors and eventual style but notify where I can correct).  
> I will still try to translate and publish one or two chapters a day.  
> Good reading!

**[My Booktrailer](https://youtu.be/9vcGWKbFihI) **

**London - Baker Street - 11 November 2017 - 1.30 a.m.**

The bedroom is barely lit by the light of the street lamps of Baker Street, that create plays of shadows through the window curtains. It is a dark night. No noise comes from the lower floor, where Mrs. Hudson, the owner of the two-story building, has been sleeping in her apartment for hours. Even the few cars, which usually pass at that time, seem to have taken different routes tonight. The only sounds that are distinctly felt are their breaths, while the lips chase each other, as in an eternal game of encounter and escape. Sherlock's hands run slowly over Irene's naked back, lying on top of him, looking into his eyes for a few moments before kissing him again. Their breaths are always faster, while her body moves sinuously like in a sweet and intense dance. The rhythm increases more and more, the breaths are transforming into mournful lamentations, until Sherlock opens his clear eyes, almost without breath, clasping his hands on the sheets. His eyes beat several times as he tries to catch his breath and at that moment he realizes that he is alone and has just woken up from a dream.

The thought pierces him again, as it is now almost three months, making him scream with rage. With his right hand he takes the pillow and throws it ferociously against the bedside table next to the bed, ruining the lamp. The sudden noise in the night almost seems to calm him, while his eyes close in a long sigh. He opens them again and when the breathing seems to come back to life, he raises himself, sitting on the edge of the bed. The bare feet touch the floor while with the elbows resting on the legs, and he passes the long fingers between the thick and curly dark hair. With another heavy sigh, he gets up, wearing only his pajama pants, heading for the bathroom. Standing in front of the mirror, he looks at his flushed face. He eats little recently and it starts to be obvious. The cheekbones appear more pronounced than usual, highlighting the elongated shape of his face, that makes him so special, not classically beautiful, but so fascinating, thanks to the clear and penetrating eyes and the soft and fleshy line of the lips. Even the tall defined body, now begins to show a hint of the ribs. He gets close to the shower, gets completely naked and after having opened only the cold water, he throws himself under it. With his head down, his hands resting on the wall, he feels the icy water coming down on his body. Cold shivers go through him but it does not matter. Now it seems that it is the only way in which he manages to clear his mind from the thought of her and he remains so, motionless, until he feels he has regained control of himself. Knowing that woman, Irene Adler, almost six years earlier, during a case of high-level scandals involving her directly, was an unpredictable event for him. He had always managed to keep any emotion out of his life. Love, like desire, had been, until that moment, the only object of study of human frailty. His mind, so brilliant, hyperactive and rational, could not conceive how one could let go of feelings. But that woman, The Woman, as she called herself on her dominatrix website, had somehow bewitched him. He had been enchanted by her clever intelligence, by her ability to keep the most important men and women in the country in check, through her mental games above all, but also by carefully storing compromising photos and videos on a phone, that she never separated from. She had deceived him, or at least she had tried and had almost succeeded, had she not fallen in the same network she had built. A game between two minds so different but so similar, a clash from which they both then burned. Six years in which he in all ways has kept her away, never surrendering totally once to her enticements. But he can’t keep her away from his mind now. Not anymore. When finally he decides to close the water, he doesn't even knows how much time has passed. He comes out of the shower and comes, almost every night, to dry well, get dressed completely and finally he goes down the stairs to leave the house. It's winter outside, Christmas is almost upon us. It does not snow but the cold of London at this time of the year can get inside your bones. He closes his long dark coat better, raises his collar and starts walking. He doesn't have a destination, he doesn't even remember where he is going these nights. He just walks. Walking reassures him and helps him to return to focus his mind, always so feverish, on cases just solved or still unresolved. When he returns home at 221B Baker Street it's almost dawn. He enters trying to make no noise and goes upstairs, disappearing into his apartment.

As soon as she hears his door close, Mrs. Hudson opens the door on the lower level and looks out in the atrium. Her gaze is clearly concerned as she looks upstairs and with a sigh she returns to her apartment. That boy, as she often calls him, is a bit like the son she never had. She takes the phone, dials a number and waits for someone to answer.

"John is me... yes... he did it again... he just came back... he must have broken something tonight... oh John I'm really worried... I'm afraid he's fallen again. We have to do something... yes... it's okay ". Closed the phone she goes into the kitchen and begins to prepare the tea as she does every morning, but this time she prepares it just for her.

After about three quarters of an hour, John Watson's car stops in front of 221B. John comes out of the car and with the keys he still keeps, although he no longer actually lives there, he opens and enters. Mrs. Hudson immediately appears in the hall and almost sighs in relief at seeing him.

"he is upstairs" she simply tells him.

"Thank you, Mrs. Hudson, now I'll take care of him" and with a sure step, almost militaristic, thanks to his past in the army, albeit as a doctor, he climbs the stairs quickly and enters Sherlock's apartment. He sees him intent on reading something on the laptop, John's laptop, and he wonders for the umpteenth time why his friend continues to use that laptop, instead of buying one for himself. Mentally he promises to give him one, and then remember that he had already done, but that laptop Sherlock always leaves it in the laboratory of Molly Hooper in the hospital, which he considers almost like a second home. Sherlock barely looks up from the screen.

"Didn’t you have to go to work this morning after accompanying Rosie to the nursery?"

"It's not even seven o'clock in the morning Sherlock, at this time both the nursery and my clinic are closed. Rosie is with the baby sitter right now and she still sleeps probably"

Sherlock looks at the time shown at the bottom of the laptop's screen and then looks up at his friend, noting every detail as usual. He has not shaved, he has dressed in his clothes perhaps the night before, the short light brown hair is hastily combed and has clear signs of worry on his face.

"What happened? Why did you come running without even having breakfast?"

"Don’t worry about my breakfast" sighs John, resigned now to the fact that it seems to be a book open to the eyes of the detective whom never escapes anything "I want to know where you keep it"

"Where do I keep what?" Sherlock's pale eyes now look at him perplexed and at the same time with ill-concealed suspicion.

"You know what I'm talking about, tell me where you keep it before I turn the house upside down and you know that then it will not please you" his voice is determined "what are they? Acids, methamphetamines, cocaine, what?"

"None of this, I'm clean" he replies, closing the laptop with a click and getting up to go to his chair, positioned to the right of the fireplace, just opposite that usually used by John.

"I don’t understand why you think I’m made of drugs, I'm perfectly polished and clean for months now" he adds before sitting down, then crossing the legs with that elegance that distinguishes him. John sighs as if to keep calm. Since he met him seven years ago, first becoming his roommate, then his assistant and best friend, Sherlock has cleverly kept away from any drugs, because his real heroine are the complicated cases to be solved, which keep busy his overactive mind. But sometimes, to implement plans almost to the limit of madness, he used it voluntarily.

"Don’t lie to me Sherlock, you're not well and you're getting worse. You don't sleep, you almost don't eat and stay out all night, but I know you're not following any cases, so either you tell me what's going on or we go to Molly and check if you're really clean"

"I told you I'm clean and nothing's going on, I'm fine, and Mrs. Hudson should take a sleeping pill in the evening or put on the caps" Sherlock still answers without looking at him.

"Okay if you put it like that now, you get up and go to Molly" John tells him in a calm and resolute voice.

"I don’t go anywhere and you would do well to have breakfast, so you calm down" Sherlock answers, squinting and bringing his hands clasped on his chin, in that usual gesture that helps him to reflect.

"Then I call Molly and maybe even our friend Inspector Lestrade and have them come here with an ambulance, that will stop outside the door. I bet that in a moment there will be many curious people, who will wonder if the great detective Sherlock Holmes is back in trouble" the sarcastic smile of John underlines his words.

"You will not do it" Sherlock tells him, looking up at him once.

"Oh yes I will, you can swear" John says, taking the phone and starting to dial the number of Molly who answers after a few rings.

"Molly? I'm John, listen... you should..."

At that moment Sherlock suddenly rises from the chair interrupting him.

"Oh, okay... okay, let's go to her laboratory so you all calm down and I can even go back to deal with something more serious" he says, stepping quickly to the stairs "let's go, I have no time to waste!" he exclaims from the lobby, while wearing his scarf and coat and giving a resigned look at Mrs. Hudson.

Upstairs, John still has the phone in his hand.

"Yes Molly, I'm still here... it worked... we're coming" he finally adds, before closing the communication and reaching the friend downstairs.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a short chapter. When actions take place in different environments and different moments I create a new chapter. Some then can be short and others much longer.  
> Good reading!

**London - Long Thames - 11 November 2017 – 7.30 a.m.**

The police cars with their flashing lights have bounded the area where the body of a young man was found. The road, now blocked by traffic, is filling up with curious and journalists. A sheet covers the body, left overnight on the sidewalk along the Thames, just before the bridge that on the other side comes directly under the Big Ben. The area, although central, at night is not very busy, but in spite of this inspector Greg Lestrade, bowed now on the body, doesn’t explain how the killer was able to abandon it, without being noticed by anyone. He lifts the sheet slightly and blinks his eyes sighing. After so many years he hasn't been accustomed to certain things and the obstinacy on this poor man seems particularly cruel to him. The body, lying on its belly, is totally naked and full of cuts. They don't look as deep, as if someone deliberately tortured him, before killing him with a deep slit in his throat. Certainly killed elsewhere, otherwise the blood would have been copious on the sidewalk. The wrists and ankles show clear red marks, then the assassin must have tied him. A closer look at the bottom makes him notice cuts also on the legs, on the buttocks and between them. He covers the body and sighs, passing a hand between his shorts grizzled hair. He then picks up the phone and composes the number of a homicide colleague, who specializes in sex crimes.

“Evans? I'm Lestrade... you have to come here... I think it's matter for you my friend... sorry to your wife but duty calls you" then closes the phone, after giving directions on where he is now. With a sigh almost of despondency, he heads towards the crowd of journalists who begin to press to get news.

"I don't know if I hate these nasties or those jackals anymore" he whispers to himself, finally forcing himself to calm down to go to them and bring back just a couple of vague news.


	3. Chapter 3

**London - Saint Bart Hospital - 11 November 2017 - 9.00 a.m.**

In her analysis laboratory, Molly Hooper, a trusted pathologist of Sherlock and friend of him, is looking at the last samples under a microscope. She has tired eyes for all the exams she has done, but now sighs with a sense of relief.

"John, he is clean, strangely healthier than either of us would seem" she looks up sweet, the gaze of a simple girl, almost water and soap, on John, who is standing on the opposite side of the table, and then turns to look at Sherlock, sitting to her right on a stool. He looks tired, he has his elbows resting on the table, with his forehead resting on his hands clasped.

"Well, now that both of you are calmer, can I go home or do you still have to turn me around like a sock?". His deep voice is barely a whisper. In this one Molly, always attentive to his reactions as she always does, notices his exhaustion. She looks at John and tries to convey to him her feeling. John seems to understand her and nods slightly, before approaching his friend.

"Listen to me Sherlock, you know that we are your friends and we love you, despite everything" despite the affectionate tone, John never fails to be ironic with him, knowing that it’s the only way to try to make him open, without get him closing on himself, as his habit.

"There is something wrong and we know it, near you there are your two best friends, take out what you have inside, maybe talk about it for once it could do you good" he still speaks to him in a calm and sure voice.

Sherlock doesn't move a muscle or open his eyes.

"Never mind John, it's not the right time" he says in a whisper.

"It's us! John and Molly! Get out of that shell and talk to us!" John exclaims, now with a louder voice. Sherlock opens his eyes and slowly looks up at his friend, then moving his gaze on Molly. He breathes strongly, as if trying to control himself before speaking.

"I'm telling you that now it's not the right time John" he says with a slight tremor in his voice, rising from the stool. Then he turned his back to both and approached the wall, stopping next to some machinery. He puts one hand on it and remains silent.

"What does it mean that now is not the right time? And when will the right time be? When you end up in hospital because you can’t sleep for whatever reason, or when you will use some drugs to sleep, isn’t it?" John now seems angry. He would like to slap him, but really, he is only genuinely worried about him. He only hopes to make him react in some way. John then looks at him silently, as Molly does, until he sees his friend throw a fist against the wall, so strong as to drop some parget.

"Do you want to know what happens? Do you want to know what happens to me?"

Now Sherlock's voice is high and full of repressed anger "it happens that I opened Pandora's box and now I can’t go back!" he exclaims forcefully, striking the wall with his clenched fist, whose knuckles start to bleed slightly.

"Oh God, what are you doing?" Molly exclaims, frightened and surprised by his unusual reaction, and after a moment of shock, she picks up and runs to take a gauze with some disinfectant from the cabinet behind them.

"Hey... hey stop, are you going to throw down the laboratory by punches?" John says instead, approaching his friend quickly. Stopping firmly his hand, which was about to hit the wall again, he speaks to him calmly again.

"Okay… okay, now come back to sit and tell us about this blessed Pandora's box" he tells him, firmly back him on the stool, while Molly gets closer and starts to medicate his hand.

Sherlock sighs looking at Molly, whose love for him, never really fulfilled in all these years, has often put him in difficulty, without scratching the tender affection he feels for her and that now he has learned not to hide.

"Forgive me Molly" he simply says.

"About what? The wall did not do almost anything, only you hurt yourself" she replies, without even looking at him, while she continues to disinfect the knuckles.

"It's not for the wall" Sherlock whispers. Then with his free hand he takes the phone from his pocket, opens it to the message section and after clicking on a conversation he passes it to John.

 John still perplexed takes the phone and looks at his friend, whose eyes now have a clear veil of sadness. He sees him sigh wearily before speaking.

"Three months, it's been three months since I wrote her, three months of silence, she never did it, never more than fifteen or twenty days between a message and the other in almost six years. I don’t know where she is. As far as I know, she could be dead, or simply I was too slow to understand what I want" the words come out with fatigue but, as if he had freed himself from an immense burden, now he feels an infinite weariness on him. John looks at him blinking. The moments in which Sherlock shares his innermost thoughts are very rare.

Molly ends up disinfecting the wound in his hand and now looks at John and the phone without saying anything.

John looks down at the phone and the conversation with _"The Woman”,_ understanding only now what the problem is, and now reads the last three messages of the conversation.

**The Woman:** Happy Birthday Sherlock, just toast with a glass of water for this time

**The Woman:** Did you celebrate with someone yesterday? I have not told you yet that yours was an absurd plan, but only a fool like you could do it. Now get back on track and go back to being fit and sexy as always... maybe we could go out for dinner together

**Sherlock:** You know where to find me. S. H.

John looks up from the phone while Molly is now laying gauze and disinfectant. He knows very well what the messages refer to, that terrible period when Sherlock took drugs to capture a serial killer. A mad plan that, at the same time, served to pull John away from the abyss in which he had fallen, after the death of his beloved wife Mary. Mary's thought pierces him in an instant, but with a sigh, he takes away from that feeling, to return to focus on his friend who certainly needs help, even if he does not admit it.

"So in the end you answered her and, considered your parameters, that message is almost a love declaration" he tells his friend, not knowing now whether or not be pleased, because it was he who tried to encourage him to do so.

"Yeah, I did it and she disappeared, it was not really the result I was hoping for" Sherlock replied with a sad, ironic smile.

"Did you expect that after all this time, almost six years in which she has continued to send you messages and flirt with you, despite your silences, you say "ok" and she rushes to you right away?" he says, trying not to have a tone of reproach.

Molly listens to the two friends while, having picked up the phone, runs all the messages. They are almost all alone of this woman, of whom she knows nothing. With a maximum of fifteen or twenty days and very rare answers by Sherlock. Lots of messages and the only ones saved on the phone's memory. She reads the last ones going back in time. She recognize dates and reconnect messages to the dramatic events of the last period.

**The Woman:** you can’t protect everyone, only stay close to him

**The Woman:** it was not your fault, stop hurting yourself or tell me that you have some plan in mind, because you would not be so sexy as dead

**Sherlock:** I have a plan. S. H.

Molly continues to scroll through the messages going back in time and dwelling on some in particular.

**The Woman:** the expression of the Minister when you took the decoration, without even giving him your hand, it was the most exhilarating thing I’ve seen in recent times

**The Woman:** Janine? Really... Janine?? Now that you surprised me Sherlock

**Sherlock:** Janine was useful to me. I had to enter a place where only she could let me in. S. H.

**The Woman:** Oh, so you used her for your purposes, you're really a bad boy... let’s have a dinner, so you can tell me the details

Molly sighing closes the conversation, looking now at the picture, set on the phone, of the woman who sent those messages. It’s the photo of her, a really beautiful and seductive woman, on a background of a website and from her clothing, as from the phrases on the background of the website, she understands its nature. Molly slams her surprised eyes a couple of times, then returns to watch the two friends.

"No John, I knew that she wouldn’t run to me. If she did it, she wouldn’t be... the only woman... but I wasn’t expecting her complete disappearance. I probably took too long to understand what I wanted and she had grown tired of waiting for me" Sherlock replies to his friend, looking at Molly again as if he felt mortified for her "again, I'm sorry Molly, I didn’t want to let you see all this"

Molly looks at him, placing the phone on the table.

"You have nothing to apologize for, I've already told you"

"Do you think you'll never hear her again?" John asks cautiously.

"I don’t know John... for the first time in my life I can’t predict what can happen. In fact, I've never succeeded with her" Sherlock replies with a slight smile, without managing to let the veil of resigned sadness shine through his eyes.

Molly looks at both of them and gives her a little laugh, suddenly attracting the two men's perplexed looks on her.

"You two do not understand anything about how women think" she says, smiling to both.

"As much as this statement of yours is almost certainly true, at least as far as John is concerned, what exactly do you mean?" Sherlock seems to have recovered for a moment.

"Thanks Sherlock, your consideration of me always moves me" John replies, turning his attention towards Molly.

"I mean, I read many of those messages. She have sent you so many, continuously. In every moment of your life in these years, if so we can say, she was always present"

"Yes, I would say that in a way it is so" Sherlock answers cautiously.

Molly continues looking at his friend with a certain tenderness.

"The last messages, as well as all the others, are those of a woman who is heavily involved. It’s impossible to forget something like that in a few days, even in three months, believe me".

Molly then takes the phone and hands it to Sherlock.

"So now it's your turn to wait, for the time it will take to get her back, and I'm sure she'll be back. In the meantime, make your life, solve cases and wait. You owe it to her and owe it to yourself"

Sherlock still looks at her, as if he saw her now under a different light. He picks up the phone from her hands and watches it for a while, then closes it in his trouser pocket. He gets up then, settling down his jacket.

"Molly Hooper you are a special woman and you really deserve someone who can appreciate you, possibly not a sociopath like me" he says smiling at her, before approaching and kissing her cheek "thanks" he finally adds and, for the first time in months, he feels as if they had taken a boulder from his heart.

"John I go home and I think I will sleep a few hours. Reach me in the afternoon. I think there are some customers who are not too boring to listen to" he then resumes his coat and without adding anything else, he leaves the laboratory, leaving Molly and John stunned by his sudden change of mood.

John turns to Molly and smiles at her.

"Everything good? If I had imagined it, I would not have involved you Molly. Believe me, that man always manages to surprise me" he says to his friend and to himself.

"Everything is fine, indeed very well. I should thank you" the woman answers, starting to fix the material used previously for the analysis.

"And for what exactly?"

"You see John, it was a long time I started to understand that what I always felt for Sherlock was perhaps more an obsession than a sincere love"

"I didn’t think so," John says, uncertainly wondering if Molly is now pretending a security she does not have.

"Yes John, I had the certainty today, by reading those messages"

"Now I really do not understand"

"John we all love Sherlock. We all love Sherlock in our way. Me, you, Greg, Mrs. Hudson and even his brother. We love him, despite everything. Each of us likes one side of his character and we accept the rest, because we love him"

"In fact it is so. Sometimes I would punch him" John replies laughing.

"Exact. Well this is a form of love but it’s not that kind of love. Instead, she likes him exactly for what he is, in all its facets. It's so clear in those messages, that it definitely made me realize that I love him, but I do not love him that way, no” her voice is quiet and serene as she talks and John smiles back.

"Sherlock is right, you know, you're a special woman" he says, gladly that Molly will be able to move on in her life.

"Now enough, too many compliments in a few hours, I'm not used" she replies laughing embarrassed.

"But John, I told him that she will come back, because I understood that he needed to hear it, but in truth, I don't know for sure, so keep him busy and don’t let your guard down" she says this and then turns and continues her work while John, nodding at her last words, leaves the laboratory.

He stops for a moment in the corridor and crosses the fingers of his hand, as if to ward off any misfortune.

"May God send us good then" he whispers to himself, then with a firm step he leaves the hospital to go to the clinic, just to make a few visits before reaching his friend in the afternoon.


	4. Chapter 4

**London – Long Thames – 11 November 2017 – 9.00 a.m.**

Robert Evans reaches the location indicated by Greg Lestrade in about half an hour. He had a day off and his wife was hoping to spend a little time with him in holy peace, taking advantage of the fact that their two children Ric and William, 10 and 12 years old, were with the grandparents out of town for a few days. But this work often leaves no room for private life, and it’s already a miracle that he still has a wife and two beautiful children to return to in the evening. Most of the cops, especially those in his department, can't keep a relationship for more than a few months. He descends from the car along the sidewalk and, after a group of journalists and photographers, he shows the detective badge to the policemen along the boundary cord, that immediately let him pass. He is a massive man, but he keeps in shape with morning races almost every day and a healthy and rigorous diet. Not once of his colleagues see him drink a drop of alcohol or even a simple beer. The red and frizzy hairs have been the cause of the nickname they've given him for about fifteen years, Ron the red, like the best friend of Harry Potter, myth of his children of which in the end he is proud. A quiet man, who loves to do his job, a bad job, managing to solve almost all cases. Too bad that some of those unsolved, but especially the damn investigation of two years before initially wrong, that kidnapped little boy found just in time thanks to external interventions, prevented him a promotion, that he certainly deserved. He would have found him too in time, if they had let him finish his work, he repeats to himself every time the thought comes back to that dark moment. But luckily after almost two years of office work, two years of useless cards, endless protocols, tedious and very long days, they reinstated him to work on the field and now he is willing to show everyone his worth. That promotion was his right.

Robert Evans approaches the body covered by the sheet and Greg Lestrade standing next to his feet.

"Then, tell me you didn't stop me from spending a day of sex with my wife for anything Lestrade. What do we have here?" he asks to his colleague and friend Greg, although stubbornly both continue to call each other by surname.

"Look yourself Evans, I think you'll agree with me that this is material for you" Greg tells him, by pointing the corpse under the sheet.

Robert lifts the sheet and observes each detail for a long time, recording every cut in his mind. He remains staring at that battered body for whole minutes in silence. Then he covers the body and nods.

"I reckon that Sara will have to give up this day and also to several others. We call coroner and forensics and we start the dances. We have another maniac to find and soon I also hope" he says, leaning on the railing behind him overlooking the Thames. He turns on its electronic cigarette, with zero nicotine, and remains silent, almost religious silence, witnessing every operation that from that moment is carried out around and on the body, until it’s locked up in an anonymous black sack and carried away towards the morgue.


	5. Chapter 5

**London - Saint Bart Hospital – 11 November 2017 - 3.00 p.m.**

The hospital morgue at many looks like a gloomy and cold place, but for Molly it's just any room. Not that she loves corpses or death, she is a solar girl in fact, but her tremendous shyness in front of the living, disappears instead near the dead. She knows that none of them observe her, no one can judge her. With them she manages to be herself, more natural, safer.

Next to the last corpse, which she has finished examining along with the coroner, she is filling out the board with the latest analyses. She has seen many brutal murder victims, but this poor man now makes her very sorry for him. Molly lifts her eyes when she hears the door open and salutes with a nod Evans who she sees enter.

"Hi Robert, I haven't seen you in a while, how are Sara and the boys?" she asks him when he approaches her.

"Hello Molly, someone would say that it’s a fortune if you have not seen me often lately, it means that there haven’t been many maniacs around in the last period" he answers her with a slight wink "at home it’s all right, the boys grow so fast that between little do I find grandpa without realizing it" he adds then smiling at the thought. They both come back serious.

"Then, I am all ears, empty the sack and tell me the last moments of life of this man and we only hope that the rest of his previous life has been less painful"

Molly pulls a sigh and starts to tell and read the card.

"Whoever killed him is a sadist par excellence. He drugged him, but only to be able to do what he wanted without the victim to react, but not happy he also tied it. The drug unfortunately did not prevent the victim from feeling the pain. There are at least a hundred cuts on every part of the body. Also on the genitals and also internal cuts" Molly sighs, continuing to speak without neglecting even a detail, hoping that this can be of help to catch this criminal madman, whoever it is.

Robert on the other hand listens attentively, without looking away from the corpse, as if he could somehow still talk to him. When Molly finishes, Robert is still standing there for a while.

"Thank you, Molly, you've been very helpful, as always" he says, finally averting his eyes from the victim.

"I hope so Robert. Get him before he does it again" she replies before she sees him come out of the morgue. She poses the folder at the base of the cot and with a sigh covers the corpse again.

"Now rest in peace if you can" she whispers before she turns off the lights and leaves the room too.


	6. Chapter 6

**London – Scotland Yard – homicides section – 3 December 2017 – 2.30 p.m.**

Greg Lestrade is locked in his office. Between one case and the other, he always promises to put in place all the incredible paperwork, for him useless, that clutter the whole of his desk, but punctually, after having spent twenty minutes to move cards from one side to the other of the desk, he surrenders and pulls out of the drawer a small tank, where he keeps some good whisky. He only takes it when a bad case is solved and this certainly was. It was not his case, but it had hit him a lot and knowing that the killer had been captured, made him want to toast. He pours a little of that good amber liquid into the glass and at that moment, after a slight knock, he sees Robert Evans looking out at the door.

“Evans! Come on in, I was just about to toast to your health, friend" he exclaims, glad to see him and, after taken a second glass, beckons him to come and sit

“Lestrade, you know I don't drink, fill it with water or at most coffee" Robert says, sitting, with an apparently tired expression, in the chair across the desk.

"Ah right, the man without vices" Greg answers, raising his eyes to the sky

"Okay I’ll drink alone then" he says by raising his glass and, drank a sip of whisky, passes to his friend the empty glass and the pot of coffee still warm.

"I prefer bed vices you know" Robert tells him, with a squeeze of his eyes pouring some coffee.

"However, there is nothing to toast" then he adds a little absently.

"But what do you say, you've brilliantly solved this case and prevented the damn sadist from killing someone else" Greg says to him, drinking another sip.

"As long as he's really been him" Robert replies in a whisper almost.

“What? Do you have any doubts? Come on Robert, the evidence is overwhelming. He had lured that poor boy into a gay bdsm chat, had given him an appointment… in his house there are traces of the victim's blood. What did you want to be sure, a video of how he tortured him before he killed him?" Greg tries to reassure his friend and colleague, realizing that after that nasty two-year-old story, maybe he lost some security in himself.

"I know Lestrade, I know, besides I arrested him. I just have a strange feeling, something doesn’t come back to me, but I can’t understand what it is and I would like to be 100% sure. That's why I came to you" Robert tells him, sipping his coffee.

"And how can I help you? You are the expert in this field" Greg has almost finished his glass in the meantime.

"Look, don't take me for a paranoid lunatic, but here, if you ask him to take a look at the case? You know… he would not listen to me, but you know him well and maybe he’ll listen to you" Robert asks him all in one breath, with apparent embarrassment.

Greg remains silent for a few moments. Then he rests the empty glass on the desk, observing carefully his friend.

"Evans, it's not that I don't want to do it, but you don't need it and it won't change the facts. In addition, Sherlock Holmes at the moment is busy with an important case and I think he would not even listen to me. So, come back to Sara and the boys, spend a few days in holy peace with them and forget about this murder. You've solved it, now let justice think about it"

Robert listens to him and finally nods.

"Maybe you're right, I just have to get out of here and forget about it" he adds finally, putting the glass with the coffee that has not even finished "if one of these nights you want, why not come to dinner with us? Sara would have so much pleasure" he asks finally getting up.

"Count Evans, but only because Sara is a fantastic cook and a company less lame than yours" he then giggles, before Robert smiling goes out of the office permanently.


	7. Chapter 7

**London – Baker Street – 24 December 2017 – 8.30 p.m.**

This Christmas has whitewashed the streets of London. Baker Street is almost completely a single white landscape, interrupted only by the Christmas lights, coming from the windows and shops, closed by now at this time of evening.

Even this Christmas at Baker Street's 221B, Mrs. Hudson managed to convince Sherlock and John to organize a festive dinner, inviting as always, for at least a toast, Molly and Greg. In the end, this is her only family, and despite the constant protests of Sherlock in recent weeks, she has managed even to place a beautiful Christmas tree, near one of the two windows of the living room in the apartment of the detective.

In front of the chimney, on the carpet between the two armchairs, Molly is playing with John's daughter who, as she grows up, remembers her mother Mary more and more. Greg, standing nearby, watches her, smiling while sipping perhaps the third glass of wine. Mrs. Hudson on this day is allowed to use Sherlock's armchair and seems not to want to leave for a moment, as if it were a conquest. The two friends are instead at the desk in front of the laptop screen, checking the latest mail messages arrived from those who ask for their help.

"Ah, after the case Rochard I can’t deal with these boring issues" Sherlock blurts, liquidating in a moment twenty messages received.

"Have you read them all already? I am only at the fourth" John looks up from the screen, resigned as always in feeling several steps backward from his friend "now can you also read like lightning?"

"The guidance reading allows me to read in a glance much longer and complex texts than some stupid message" Sherlock replies, intimately pleased to be able to show off his skills "and helps me to keep active my mental palace, in which I keep all the memories" he goes back to scrutinize with his grey eyes, which now go on the blue, the screen of the laptop.

"You're the usual blowhard" replies John giggling.

"Of course I am, and I'm proud of it" Sherlock adds amused "better this title" then he tells him, indicating the draft of the last post that John is preparing for the blog on the last case they faced.

"Really?" John then looks at the draft and squints his eyes "I had chosen a different title, when you changed it?" asks him with ill-concealed irritation.

"I haven’t changed anything, you know I don’t follow these things, I only saw that you changed the title, luckily I would add"

"I don't remember having done it though" John still looks at him suspiciously. That is his creature and the fact that he put his hand even on the blog irritates him somewhat.

"John If I did, I'd tell you, I wouldn't take the credit for it. I think you drank a little too much and do not remember it, so I assume it’s time to leave the laptop and continue to toast, it seems more logical" and said that, he closes with a click the laptop, getting up to take two glasses of wine, promptly filled by Greg, giving one to his friend who still doesn’t seem convinced.

"Well, maybe you're right" John says, taking the glass and getting up too.

"So Mrs. Hudson, again this year we are here to toast with you, promise me that however tomorrow I will return to have my living room without all these pesky lights, festoons and sapling for me incomprehensible?" Sherlock speaking raises the chalice, inviting everyone into a toast.

"Not at all my dear, the tree and the lights are held until January six, remember that you promised me, you don't want to give me a displeasure in the last years of my life, do you?"

"You will bury us all Mrs. Hudson, so I hope that the thing takes place as far away as possible" he adds, by nodding a smile and sighing at the thought of having to see again for a few days his living room invaded. The glasses of all stand up and by emulation Rosie, always sitting on the carpet, raises her pacifier, by unleashing in almost all cheerful laughter.

John then approaches his daughter, prints a kiss on her forehead and taking her in his arms, he sits on his armchair. At that moment the giggles fade and in a moment of silence a sound, as a hint of female lamentation, comes from the phone left on the desk next to the laptop.

In an instant the weather seems to stop. Sherlock standing in front of the chimney just slams his eyelids.

Mrs. Hudson looks up at the sky.

"But this ringtone can't you change it? I thought you had done, it was a long time since I didn’t felt it, it’s really indecent my dear boy" she tells him, taking up drinking her wine.

Greg giggles, finding that this ringtone is fun, and still he doesn't understand why someone like Sherlock chose it, it would be more of a thing he would do himself in effect.

Molly and John look at each other and seem to hold their breath for a moment, before returning to watch their friend still stationary.

Another lament announces a second message and immediately after even a third. Sherlock then seems to recover and, put the glass on the mantelpiece, with fast movements he reaches the phone and opens it to read the messages. He realizes that he has the heart that now beats fast. The thing baffles him and for a second almost seems to him the view is tarnished. These reactions are so unexpected for him that he would be almost tempted to put down the phone again, but it's just a momentary thought. The desire to read those messages, that for almost four months he expected, takes over.

**The Woman:** Merry Christmas Sherlock, the Eiffel Tower looks like a Christmas tree all lit up right now

**The Woman:** I gave you a gift and I sent you a couple of weeks ago... this time it's not my phone...

**The Woman:** Find it, at the first shot of course

Sherlock reads the messages and can’t hold back a smile. He remembers well that first Christmas in which she made him find on the chimney her precious phone as a gift, with all the photos and information for her vital and that never abandoned, although blocked by a password that only at the end of all he was able to discover. That phone was like a farewell note and believing her dead, even if for a short time, it was an intimate torture for him, that never confessed to anyone, perhaps even himself.

"Then, what does it say?" John seems almost anxious, but his friend's smile cheers him a little.

"She's in Paris, she made me a present and hid it here somewhere, I don't know how. She challenged me to find it" he replies, by holding for a few moments still the phone in his hand, before storing it in the pocket of his trousers, while a light, clearly amused, brightens his eyes.

"Really?" Molly asks, now amused her too "a treasure hunt then. Let's see, where could it be? Maybe tucked away in some drawer"

"No, it would never be so simple and trivial no" he answers her distractedly.

Molly sighs for yet another almost indelicate phrase that she hears from her friend, but now she doesn't notice it anymore.

Sherlock starts looking around.

"No, she sent it and made sure that I had it under my nose for days and days, without me noticing. It must be so, she loves these games" he whispers almost more to himself, continuing to look around in the room.

"You don't like these games at all, do you?" John adds ironically, getting a shrug from the now too focused friend.

Greg is a bit perplexed, because he doesn’t understand who they are talking about and even who the heck thought to send a gift and hide it, but then he decides that basically a treasure hunt could be even fun, if there wasn’t their friend though that, he bets, he will find the gift before he has finished the glass of wine, the fourth for accuracy. Thank goodness that at least he knows how to drink, for others the bottle would still be almost completely full.

Mrs. Hudson seems even more perplexed than Greg, but she perceives the cheerful atmosphere and leaves her involved.

Sherlock begins to talk reasoning aloud.

"Then, where it is, you know that I would have noticed anything out of place in this room, where I spend most of the time, but surely you put it right here. Where are you then?" The eyes move feverishly, remembering with extreme clarity every movement and move of objects of the last two weeks "it must be something you knew I would see without looking, because of little or no interest to me, so where are you? Two weeks ago, it came here, brought by whom?" At that moment a memory emerges in his mind.

"Mrs. Hudson, am I mistaken or a couple of weeks ago they handed you a box that you ordered with the decorations?"

"Oh Yes, some beautiful decorations" Proudly Mrs. Hudson indicates those placed on the chimney “and also for the tree then, those have kindly given me. I must remember to thank the shopkeeper " she adds happy as she turns to look at the tree behind her, decorated with festoons, balls, lights and many packets by the form of small gifts.

"Yes, the decorations for the tree, that object that seems so useless to me that I probably have not deigned to look at all these days" Sherlock says to himself. Smiling, as he approaches the tree, he fixes all those little red packets hanging, all seemingly the same. He then takes the phone and writes a message.

**Sherlock:** Very cunning, you know that I certainly do not love the decorations of a tree

Molly and Greg in the meantime approached following the friend's gaze.

"Well then? Where is it? Is this one of these? What are you waiting to open them? That's one of them, isn't it?" she says while her curiosity now appears evident. A new incoming message.

**The Woman:** At the first shot Sherlock... amaze me

"No, I must guess without opening them Molly, this is the funny" his clear eyes are now focused to scrutinize the packets in each gradient. He turns around the tree to watch them from every angle.

"Same paper, same measures, same weight, obvious from how they tilt on the branches, same tape, but different knots, all different, so which one of this are you?"

The mind works feverishly and the images contained in his mental palace come out quickly, associating each knot with a symbology.

"The knot of sailors, the knot of Iside, the knot of Gordio, each of these represents a kind of bond in the symbology but no, none of these is the right one" then his gaze stops on another knot "the knot of Solomon, oh you, here he it is". He confidently grabs the little pack, whose tape forms this knot from the particular weave.

"Okay… okay, enlighten us please, because I’m stuck to the knot of sailors, who I don’t even know well, to tell the truth" Greg asks him, now in the middle of the fourth glass of wine, but that seems very well tolerated by him.

"The knot of Solomon" Sherlock whispers, as he walks towards the center of the room, continuing to look and weigh the gift he has identified “it’s one of the oldest symbols. It’s said that Solomon was a very romantic and at the same time very cruel man. Esoterically it represents the merging of two elements, that merge to give origin to the whole" he explains to friends while writing a new message.

**Sherlock:** The knot of Solomon, refined choice certainly

**The Woman:** I knew you'd understand it but it took you less than a minute... damn sexy

"Excuse me a moment" he says finally to everyone and now, wanting to open that gift privately, he moves away going to his room, indifferent to the protests of friends, now all of them curious to know what it is.

Molly and John look at each other smiling and finally they both heave a sigh of relief.

"Maybe it's the good time by" John whispers.

"We wait to sing victory, these two, I fear, are unpredictable" she replies, then taking Rosie from the arms of her friend while, carries her to the sofa where a temporary cot was equipped for the baby.

Sherlock closes behind the door of the bedroom and, sitting on the bed, now looks at that package, remembering as if it were yesterday those same gestures of that first Christmas and the despondency felt at that time.

"But now it’s different" he whispers resolute to himself as he slowly opens the package, making sure not to dissolve that knot so complex and beautiful. Once opened the box, it appears a small gold medal in the shape of an oval. He lifts the chain by arching an eyebrow to look at the unusual gift and then he notices the inscription on one side of the medal: "I am sherlocked" as the password that Irene had chosen for her phone.

He looks at it again for a few moments, blinking his eyes several times, and then he laughs cheerfully. He then takes the phone and sends a new message.

**Sherlock:** I don't wear little chains

**The Woman:** But this you’ll wear it… I'm sure

He looks at the message received with a smile definitely amused, he still looks at the chain for a few moments, then, taken the decision, he opens the hook of the small and thin golden chain, ties it around his neck and makes it disappear under the shirt, savoring the metal sensation on the skin, that causes him a slight shiver. It’s so difficult for him to allow himself to go to these feelings, but he also explores them with some curiosity.

**The Woman:** I also bet that you're fine... with the chain as only clothing

**Sherlock:** Merry Christmas Irene

**The Woman:** Goodnight Sherlock

With a last smile he gets out of bed and puts in a drawer, carefully, the box and the tape, whose knot is still intact. He closes the phone, knowing that there will be no other messages for now, and reopened the door he reaches his friends, ready to support their curious looks and questions that, as almost always, he will try to evade.


	8. Chapter 8

**London - Columbia Road - 19 February 2018 - 8.00 a.m.**

The scent of flowers in Columbia Road is a unique and perennial feature of all Sundays. The largest outdoor flower market in the world, at that time of the morning, is already in business and all the workers are in full operation. Despite the intense cold of the period, the sunny day creates pleasing light effects with reflections on the windows of the street shops, while the glass vases, in which the compositions of plants of all kinds alternate, appear in the sun even more vivid.

Robert Evans walks in the middle of the street, looking for a particular fabric shop. Those compositions are so beautiful, he thinks, that his wife Sara would probably take them all. He smiles, thinking of her obsession with plants, especially fat ones that have literally invaded their small garden in that house that they managed, with difficulty, to buy in the southern suburbs of London. A small garden, where Sara barely manages to spread clothes, and where their children play, but there is no way to remove all those plants that she adores. But he, as always, can never deny her something. Many of those times he is forced to leave her alone with the children, so then, whatever she asks him, he satisfies her, perhaps to be forgiven for the continued absence. This morning, on the other hand, he was on duty at the police station, when the call came to the switchboard for the discovery of a corpse in a Columbia Road shop. From the descriptions made, it was immediately clear that it was a case for his section. Having identified the fabric store, referred to as the crime scene, slowly he approaches it. Outside it, some agents keep the curious away. As always, Robert shows his badge and enters, paying attention to where he walks. At the entrance, he wears over shoes to avoid contaminating the scene and then proceeds through carpets and fabrics to the back of the store. He stops at the door of the laboratory and, hands in his pockets, observes every detail. He looks at it, as if it were a painting, to initially observe its overall dynamics and the effect it makes, before start to move on the details that compose it. In the middle of the laboratory, a large work table, where the fabrics are usually cut and folded, is completely free of any tool. On it, there is the victim's body, a young woman with long red hair, which is lying naked and tied up, with her legs and arms wide open. Her eyes still wide open, still lifeless and still reflect the terror she must have felt. A large, narrow adhesive tape must have prevented her from screaming. Robert observes every detail, approaching the table. Tight ropes, the wrists and ankles are almost blood red, due to the effort the woman must have made to try to free herself. On the neck clear signs of strangulation, probable cause of death. His gaze moves down at various bruises on the breasts and between the legs, which shows the obvious violence that she must have suffered. Inside the right leg a deep cut, but not enough to make it bleed. A single cut served to obtain the ink with which on the wall at the bottom is been written "Fuck You". The used knife is on the ground and must belong to the victim, owner of the store, because it resembles others placed in order on a shelf. The detective remains for a long time to observe every little detail, without anything transpires from his face and his expressions.

"Alright, call the scientific and coroner, I have finished here" Robert finally says, turning to the lieutenant at his side "have you already taken any evidence?" He then asked.

"Unfortunately, nobody saw anything or heard anything", reports the lieutenant, taking the notebook from his pocket. "The woman lives alone and this shop inherited it from an uncle. She has been running it for a few months and things are not going very well. She also seemed to have asked for loans, but they denied them. The last time she was seen it was last night, when she closed the shop and is supposed to go home, but we have no certainty. This morning her only employee found her here in this state. The shop was already open, according to reports, but the lights were turned off. Now she is in the other room, in a state of shock, but if you want, you can talk to her"

Robert nods after listening carefully.

"You've already done a great job. I prefer to talk her at the police station later on, when she has calmed down" he replies, turning his back to the slaughter, yet another, carried out against a woman. "Then, let's open the dances and hope the dance does not last long" he finally says with a nod, before going out again outdoors where the scent of flowers invades him, making him forget the rancid smell of death.


	9. Chapter 9

**London – Scotland Yard - violent crime section - 16 March 2018 - 5.00 p.m.**

Robert Evans in his office is looking at the case file that has totally committed him in recent weeks. With the elbows resting on the desk and the chin on the clasped hands, he rereads the report for the tenth time, trying to figure out what does not work. A violent and brutal murder, and only after weeks of investigation has it turned out a former lover of that woman. A lover of which nobody knew, and that only thanks to the fortuitous finding of an old hard disk of the victim, thrown into a cellar along with a thousand other junk, that has been found old photos and emails of a box disabled for some time. A former lover, who apparently did not accept being left behind. The mail alternates between the stalking and the threat and perhaps this is why the woman had closed the mailbox, by throwing the old PC and taking the hard disk. She thought she might be safe, because he did not know her real name or where she lived or worked, but evidently it was not. It was not easy to frame him, but his total lack of alibi as well as the presence of the man in the area of Columbia Road the night of the murder, as the tracking of his gps has shown, has made him the main suspect. The finding of those mails and especially those in which he threatened to strangle her, repeating obsessively as a signature every time "fuck you", was instead his condemnation. Yet Robert Evans is not happy, you can see it from his expression. He continues to stare at the case file to try to figure out what's wrong with it. In the end, he decides to pick up the phone. He makes up the number of Greg Lestrade, who answers after a few rings.

"Evans, for God sake, but are you still here?"

"I could say the same thing as you Lestrade" Robert replies, giggling a moment before going on "listen to me, I feel like an idiot right now to ask you this, but really I become crazy, my sixth sense tells me something that I can’t however understand"

"Evans what the hell are you talking about? If you allude to the case just closed, you're out of your mind my friend"

"No, really listen to me. What does it cost you to call your friend and submit him the case? At most he sends you to the devil, which I remember that he succeeds very well, but I really would like him to take a look at it, and you know I can’t introduce myself to him, nor would he open the door to me". Robert's tone is almost impatient, and for a moment he remembers that period, when he was also helping to nurture the false accusations against the detective, when with a deception Moriarty, the archenemy of Sherlock, had made everyone believe that the great detective was an impostor. Moreover, Robert was not the only one to have supported that lie, and the case of the kidnapping of the minor, resolved brilliantly by Sherlock, it didn’t have him well disposed towards the detective. He had put the promotion back on it, he couldn’t be blamed if he too had helped fuel the doubts about Sherlock, during the Moriarty case.

"Evans really, you have to accept it. You made a mistake in the past and okay, you can’t spend the rest of your life walking on eggs. Anyway, even this time he is behind a serial killer right now. Maybe when it all ends I can try to talk to him, if this make you feel comfortable" Greg says sighing "Now, get out of this damn office and go home" he adds.

"Okay, okay, I close everything and go, but if you will talk to him let me know, promised me?" He asks again.

"Promised, good evening Evans," he hears him say before closing the conversation.

"Good evening to you Lestrade" and after putting down the phone with a sigh, he closes the case file by throwing it in a drawer, turns off the light on the desk and took the coat he leaves the office, hoping that Sara and the children can make him pass this feeling of latent nervousness that he carries inside him.

 

 


	10. Chapter 10

**London – Baker Street – 23 March 2018 – 10.30 a.m.**

At the end of March, the city of London is still far from a milder climate, but the freezing cold of winter is now behind. At 221B Baker Street is early in the morning that photographers and journalists wait to be able to talk to the detective, who has successfully solved yet another tangled case. Sherlock on his side does not seem to care that much and, sitting in his armchair, is at least an hour in an apparent state of trance, clearly locked in his thoughts, without noticing anything around him. Mrs. Hudson tried to talk to him several times, without getting an answer, but she's so used to this, that she doesn't wonder. Now, standing near him, she still looks at him for a few moments, before resigning herself to his muteness and taking the tray with the biscuits, which he did not even touch. At that time in the room John enters, who with fatigue had managed to wriggle by the thousand questions of journalists in front of the entrance of the house.

"You know, Sherlock, you should tell them something, they're starting harassing" he tells his friend, laying his jacket on a chair. Mrs. Hudson meanwhile came back downstairs, leaving them alone. John, seeing that the friend does not answer, imagines that he is taken by other thoughts.

"What's the matter? Have you found another case yet? Heck, you can never rest a moment you" he asks, knowing that for now he probably will have no answer. He then approaches his laptop open on the desk to see if there is a message from some customer, that may have so magnetized his attention. The desktop however shows not his blog nor the Inbox but only a map of London and a point on it that pulsates.

"What is this?" asks him indicating the map "what's going on at that point?"

Sherlock doesn’t move a muscle, but the eyes for a moment close.

"It's a GPS location tracking program" he replies, without even looking at him.

"And so? Should that tell me something? Sometimes I wonder if you do economics of words or if you think maybe you have made a speech, made with only three words" John tells him, returning to look at the laptop.

"That point then is the GPS of someone I guess. Who's that? Please do not another serial killer because I want to spend a few days in peace with Rosie" finally he adds, already knowing though that he would not be able to abandon his friend in any adventure he wants to throw himself.

"Look at the area and the road" Sherlock tells him again without moving.

John then sits down and looks at the point on the map. Eaton Square, a luxury area in London's Belgravia district, home to many embassies but also colonial-style villas, if he remembers it well. He tilt his head a moment and remembers who lives in that area.

"Oh, you mean it's her? But when did you plot her position?" he asks him turning towards Sherlock.

"How do you think I managed to save her that time, when those terrorists wanted to cut her head off? I installed a locator on her phone when she stayed for a while in my brother Mycroft custody, and she knows it. That's why she also took the battery out in these months"

“Well. Then she returned to London" now John says, and getting out of the chair he reaches him, sitting on his armchair in front of Sherlock "so? What are you going to do?" he asks him finally.

Sherlock now raises his gaze upon him.

"After Christmas she disappeared again for another three months, what should I do in your opinion?" His seemingly detached tone, fails to conceal a bit of uncertainty and frustration.

"Sometimes you seem like a perfect idiot, you know" John tells him, halfway between an impatient and an ironic tone.

"This is not something I often hear" Sherlock replies with a raised eyebrow.

"Someone once in a while must tell you" John adds sighing "listen to me for once. At Christmas she sent you a rather eloquent gift. If you think I have not seen it, you are even more idiot, because that chain you always wear, and once it sticking from your shirt I also managed to read what is written on the medal" he tells pointing at him.

Sherlock doesn’t answer, but instinctively he touches the shirt, feeling under it the metal of the chain. John, after a brief pause, continues to speak to him in the same tone.

"She disappeared again and now, back in London, she has rekindled her phone… and she knows that you are tracing it" and after finishing, he leans back in the armchair, drumming with his hand on the armrest, waiting for the friend to react.

"So, what do you think it means? She wants me to know she's back. Well, she can text me or call or come here. She's been back for three days, but she hasn't done any of it" Sherlock tells him with an apparently detached expression.

"Ah… now I understand your mood of the last days" John says almost more to himself "you are really unique you know… you're able to face a serial killer, without thinking a second, and to go to the woman of your life you're here to brood like a frightened boy… heck… get up from this chair and go to her" he exclaims finally.

"She may not like my presence" Sherlock replies, blinking surprised by his tone.

"You're right, it's a risk, but if you don't go to her the risk might be certainty. Take a real step towards her and don't think that everyone should always run after you! If she didn't want you to know she was here, she wouldn't turn on her phone. This gives you no certainty but gives you a hope, so now you get up from this blessed armchair and go to her, before it’s really too late" and in the talk John rises, inviting him with his gaze to react from that state of torpor.

Sherlock remains for a few more minutes sitting, as if to metabolize what the friend told him, then he rises slowly, approaches the chair where his jacket is resting, wears it with care and turns to him.

"Let it be clear, I'm not an idiot" he says calmly "anyway, thanks for telling me" he adds "I go to war then John, wish me luck" he finally says with a slight smile and a look now perhaps more determined.

"Good luck" John says simply, looking at him then go out the living room, go down the stairs to the atrium, wear his coat and leave without hesitation the house.

"And that goes as it must go" then John adds to himself, looking at him from the window stop and talk to the journalists still waiting, answer just a couple of questions and then get in the car, moving away from Baker Street, without caring about the protests that he leaves behind.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I originally wrote this chapter, after describing a sex scene, I decided to remove it, leaving only the initial part of it. I feared to fall into the banal, because these are the most difficult to write scenes, a good erotic and passionate scene is a fine line between the banal and the pornographic. In recent times I wrote instead of the highly erotic shots (which I will translate and publish, but it arrive at the end of all the long stories of this series). It was a literary challenge that I wanted to face. Seems to have surpassed it, according to who has read them. Translating this chapter now I decided to rewrite that scene that I had cut. So... enjoy!

**London – 44 Eaton Square – 23 March 2018 – 12.00 a.m.**

Sherlock's car stops at the opposite sidewalk of the elegant villa where Irene lives. Turn off the engine he looks towards the windows, whose thick curtains hide outside the presence or not of someone. Although London is not a sunny city, at that time it’s not yet necessary to turn on the lights inside the houses. He sighs, wondering if she really is at home. She may actually have left the phone on, but not be there. Maybe she's not even in London, it would be a cruel game but would not surprise him. Sherlock looks carefully all the windows, looking for some trace of presence, but nothing gives him any confirmation. He remains still a few minutes, then, open the door, he comes down from the car, reaching in a few steps the stairs and the elegant portico up to the front door of her house. He then raises his gaze to a corner at the top on the left, where a small flashing red light confirms that the alarm is inserted, so there is no one in the house at the moment. He squints his eyes reflecting on what to do and then, taking the decision, he gets to work.

**London – 44 Eaton Square – 23 March 2018 – 1.00 p.m.**

Irene Adler looks out the window of the big black car that now enters Eaton Square. All morning she got carried around, stopping at some luxury boutique downtown, to make some new purchases. She needed to get out of the house and distract her mind from that man. She has been after him for years, but since he made it clear that he is ready, fear has suddenly taken over, because now it would not be a game and this could no longer control it. For a woman like her not to have control is like not having the ground under her feet. She tried to stay away from him, but it turned out to be almost impossible. The temptation to send him that gift at Christmas was superior to her fears. She tried to move away again, but in the end, she decided to return to London, although she had not yet made a real decision. But she thinks she's in time to backtrack, if she keeps him at a distance, maybe she can do it. The driver stops before the entrance of her house and goes down to open the door. Irene leaves the car with elegant movements. Under her dark coat she wears a light dress with a long series of buttons on the front and a waist belt, that emphasizes her slender body. The hair is elegantly collected, as her habit, and on high heels she moves like a noble but fierce feline. The driver moves away while she stops in front of the front door. She inserts the key and enters, by closing the door behind herself. Then she turns to the alarm control to unplug it, but she notices that it’s already closed. Irene blinked her eyes, she was sure to have it inserted but perhaps, she thinks, these constant thoughts have distracted her. Besides, the door was well closed and, looking around in the atrium, she doesn’t see anything out of place. Everything as she left it, including her phone on the shelf, that she decided not to carry with her. Put the coat on a chair and, arriving at the height of the shelf, she takes the phone, checking if there are any messages or calls. Nothing of course, she thinks rippling her lips in a slight ironic smile, and she does not know whether to be happy or not. Irene poses the bags with the purchases there on the ground, which she then will take upstairs, heading towards the living room downstairs, with the look still on the phone. Entering the living room, she looks up and hangs almost petrified. In front of her, sitting comfortably in the armchair, there is Sherlock. In his lap he had her laptop, which she had left on the low table there in front, with his eyes fixed on the screen, while writing something. Irene only slams her eyes for a moment in surprise, then, as if nothing, she comes into the room, laying her phone on a bedside table. She sits on the couch, where he left his coat, and crossing her legs elegantly, she looks at him with arms crossed on her breasts.

"I have to ask you, how did you get into my house, or are you going to tell me spontaneously?" she asked in a calm and profound tone even though, against her will, her heart began to beat stronger.

Sherlock does not respond immediately or raises his eyes from the laptop.

"When I was here six years ago, upon entering the house, before you came, I had time to look at the alarm and when you were in Mycroft's custody I made a copy of your keys, thinking that I could serve it one day. Disconnecting the alarm was a child’s play" he says, continuing to write.

"Yes, I guess, pretty much how easy it must have been for you to find my laptop's logon password" she replies, without being able to hold back an amused smile.

"You are right" he says, by closing the laptop now with a shot, before storing it on the table in front of him. He then raises his eyes on her and both remain for a few minutes in silence, simply by looking at each other.

"How long have you been here?" she asked him, without being able to detach her eyes from those of him.

"About an hour, I got to answer some terribly boring customers who wrote to me and solved a stupid case, that one of them presented to me. I wonder, sometimes, how they don’t get there alone to the solutions" he answers, continuing to fix her with a calm that is only apparent, because to see her is provoking a series of inner emotions so strong that it’s difficult to understand for him.

"They are not all called Sherlock Holmes, you know" Irene tells him, with an ironic and amused smile.

"Luckily, I don't think the world could hold another Sherlock Holmes" he replies in the same tone.

"No, it would be too much indeed" Irene commented with a slight laugh "now, want you to tell me why you're in my house? You could have called me or sent me a message" she adds.

"Would you have answered me?"

"Probably not, not for now at least" she replies smilingly.

"That's what I thought in fact, but I think it's time to get out of this stall" he says calmly, without detaching her eyes for a second.

Irene remains for a few minutes in silence. Then she lets go to a sigh.

"Do you know that now we don't come back anymore?" she asked him, without lowering his gaze.

Sherlock smiles slightly nodding and at that moment he rises. He moves by stopping in front of the coach, then with slow movements he takes off his jacket and drops it on the coffee table.

"Really, it has been since we met that it is so" he says in a calm voice "you have to know now…  there is a certain chemical formula that I have studied lately, is a formula where two different elements, which have but equal and opposed components, cross and to be able to make so that neither element loses its principles" he looks at her now starting to unbuttoning his shirt, that in a few moments he takes off, letting it fall on the ground.

Irene, who until that moment listened to him imperturbable, can’t do less now to miss a slight sigh, moving her eyes on his perfect chest, on which stands out the golden chain that she gave him. Now she raises upon him her amused gaze.

"Sherlock Holmes, what are you doing?" she asks him in a warm voice.

"I'm stating a theorem, but if you get bored I'll stop" he answers her, with his hands now still on the trouser button.

Irene smiles maliciously, letting go at that game that is melting all the tension accumulated in recent months.

"Oh no, I’m not bored at all, continue as well" she says, without looking up from the hands of him.

"Well, I said then that to maintain the integrity of the principles of both elements" he resumes, taking off his shoes while simultaneously he unbuttons his pants "there is only one possible solution" he says, taking off with a single gesture pants and socks, that then he leaves in a little pile near the shoes.

Irene sighs, now enlarging her arms on the back of the coach, as she feels the excitement go up quickly. That man, so different but similar to her, so incredibly intelligent and confident, yet intimately fragile, so strongly ambiguous, manages to unleash in her powerful desires.

Sherlock's warm and deep voice continues.

"And the only possible solution is that they are founded. Both lose. Both win. A fusion that does not leverage anything to the other, but that also creates something new" and with the last words he stripps entirely, remaining naked in front of her.

Irene, without saying anything for a few moments, lets her look all over his body, before going back to look into his eyes.

"I knew that that chain as the only dress you would have been fine" she tells him with a whisper.

"Well, now we're on par, I would say" he tells her, alluding to the first time in that same room they had seen and she had presented completely naked, to try to impress him.

Irene smiles, amused also by how he has recourse to chemistry and science to explain the emotions and that otherwise incomprehensible attraction that has immediately involved with each other. She observes him now approaching a few steps. Her hands close around the edges of the back of the coach, in an attempt to maintain control.

"It was the sexiest striptease I've ever seen" she says in a whisper "only you could think of stripping yourself and stating a theorem" she adds with the breath more breathlessly.

"I knew you'd like" he tells her taking another step towards her.

"Even imagine how much I liked" Irene's voice is just a whisper "stop there" then adds.

Sherlock stops, he does not detach his eyes from her and lets herself look. He looks at her eyes for a long time and he senses her desire to return to lead the game. For some strange reason, he likes it and looks at her.

Irene now has the look of a panther, determined to play with her prey before capturing it permanently. Slowly moving up from the coach, she approaches him and with the index of her left hand, she touches that chain. The nail now begins to move horizontally on his chest, while slowly she starts to turn around him. She feels the breath of Sherlock becoming heavier and her own heart hastening his beats. The nail now passes on his back and, bathing her lips, Irene appreciates his beautiful body. Finally, she comes back again before him. Their bodies and lips almost graze. Irene opens with deliberate slowness the buttons of her dress that now shows her naked body.

The eyes of Sherlock observe that body that has not forgotten, while having seen it only once for a few minutes, and now stay still without doing anything, is becoming more and more a sweet terrible torture. Her dress falls at her feet. The breathes of both, broken, seem to become one.

"Now Sherlock, now" Irene tells him in a hoarse whisper, raising her right hand to stick her fingers in those thick and rebellious curls, before the words smudge in a slight kiss and then gradually more and more intense and languid, so awaited and desired by both, to make you forget everything in an instant, to make you lose control. Irene grabs his back, planting her sharp fingernails on his skin, while he squeezes her hard.

Feeling for the first time the naked body of her against him, it makes Sherlock shudder and feels like a shock that crosses him, making him almost tremble with pleasure. Again, like that time in the rain, the scent of her fills his nostrils, his thoughts vanish and he loses all contact with his mind, a feeling so strong that even the heaviest of drugs has ever made him try. While their lips are chasing each other and their tongues meet, Sherlock caresses her back, her soft buttocks, her hips, until he gets up with one hand on a breast and grab with two fingers her turgid nipple, that almost feels vibrating under his caress.

Irene breathes with difficulty, losing herself in that kiss, lambing and nibbling those lips so soft that she wanted almost from the first moment. She doesn't remember having ever felt so excited before, with anyone. She wanted him so much in these years, that now she would like to not break away from his body anymore. She sinks her fingernails into his skin, on his shoulders, as if she wants to leave a perennial imprint on him, as if with those fingernails she could enter into his soul, heart and not only on his skin. When she feels the hand of him capturing her breast, she fails to hold back a hoarse and long groan, that is lost in the mouth of him, and with the body tightens to him, getting up on the tip of the shoes she still wears.

Sherlock to hear her groan, shudders even more and with a single gesture, without ceasing to kiss her, he lifts her back on the coach, where they almost fall together.

Irene imprisons him between her legs, arching towards him like a mute invitation.

Sherlock pauses a moment, as if to regain control, as he now feels his heart beating a thousand and thoughts almost completely disconnected.

"Don't make me wait any longer" she says almost breathless.

Those words create more shivers throughout his body. He looks her in the eye and with a single slow movement, he enters into her letting go to a hoarse groan.

He remains firm for a few moments, trapped by her body, by the legs of her who grasp around his hips, by the arms of her enveloping him, while her hands descend to grasp him for the buttocks.

Both of them breathlessly look at each other, amazed almost by the feeling of being now a single body, as if for the first time in life they felt they were truly complete.

Sherlock starts to move slowly and deeply, carrying both his hands around her face and starts kissing her, then descending with his lips along her chin, her neck, her shoulder and as he increases the rhythm, he hears the moans of her filling his mind and exiting him more and more. He feels her fingernails slide along his back, her body increasingly tense, the twitches that wrap it and tighten it.

"Look at me Sherlock" he hears her talking in a hoarse whisper, and when he lifts up his head staring at her look into that of hers, Irene lets herself go to an orgasm that shakes her deep, making her scream his name and recline her head back, while her body arches as if to meet him more.

Sherlock can no longer resist and soon reaches the climax, throwing open his eyes for a moment for pleasure, while he lets go to a long moan, before he collapsed exhausted on her body, hiding his face in her neck and muttering the name of her.

Hearts that beat still strong and run like two trains running, the sweaty and embraced bodies, the breathless breaths, the lips that graze, they look at length, the green eyes of him drowning in the blue ones of her, a deep sea that envelops both and makes disappear the whole world.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in this chapter I have described in great detail the scene of an extremely bloody crime. Nothing that I wrote is unnecessarily violent, everything makes sense and in the dynamics of history this chapter is as important as everyone else. I hope you enjoy the story and so ... good continuation!

**London - South Kensington – 23 March 2018 - 1.00 p.m.**

The elegant district of South Kensington, with its residential villas, its art galleries and museums, its prestigious universities, in this late morning seems bewildered by sounds that are not normally part of its everyday life. The sounds of ambulance sirens, from the early morning, were then followed by those of the police cars, and now a helicopter flies over the area in concentric circles. In front of one of the villas, cars and ambulances are gathered in a semi-circle, creating almost a wall. Beyond these, a narrow cordon of agents prevents anyone from approaching and looking. Within the perimeter, two other ambulances await their load, the men of the investigative scientific department, completely covered by their suits, enter and exit the door.

Robert Evans and Greg Lestrade are both inside the villa in the large kitchen on the ground floor. Greg stands at the door jamb, trying to keep control over his stomach, strained by what he already saw on the first floor and what is now shown before him.

Robert instead is crouched on the ground, staring at the face of the dead woman, whose frightened eyes seem to look him deep inside. The victim is naked, bent forward on the back of a chair, the face that grazes the seat, arms and legs tied to the chair so as not to move. She has no gag or insulating tape, because the house is soundproofed, and so her screams could not heard by anyone outside the house, but surely her screams were heard by the murderer and the other two victims, her husband and her son, if they were still alive to listen to them. Because she really screamed a lot, Robert thinks. The woman has been tortured for a long time and the signs are evident. Signs of cigarette burns, but also of a candle, whose remains are there on the ground. Deep red marks on every part of her body, that are struck by a riding crop or something similar. Also other not clearly identifiable burns, such as patches, many and large, on various parts of the body.  She was certainly raped and in a brutal way. Finally drained of her blood slowly, probably. There are long cuts along the arteries of the wrists, as suicides do when they really want to take their own lives. On the ground in a basin, probably extracted when the woman was dead, there is her heart, almost black and no longer life and blood.

"God, this is just as ugly as history… already seeing her husband and her teenage son upstairs debilitated me… with this I'm in pieces, and I don’t know how you can bear to see scenes like that continuously" Greg says, trying to fight the nausea.

"You don’t see frequently scenes like this, Lestrade" Robert tells him, standing up "believe me it's not a common thing and this is not a common murderer" he adds now approaching the table in the middle of the kitchen, where there is a piece of black fabric in the shape of a heart, with a knife planted in its center.

"At least, with the boy he was less bloody, just a blow on the head, evidently he had it with his parents, with them he is really avid" Greg tries to recover and starting to make hypotheses.

"Then, he tortures him and kills him almost making him the scalp" and the image of the man upstairs comes back in his head, making him feel sick again "he dissolves her and then removes her heart, what the hell does that mean?"

"I don’t know Lestrade, he's a sadist of course and he really likes what he does, he's taken all the time, he must have been here for hours. We must understand the dynamics, who killed first and who last and investigate the life of this family" Robert answers, continuing to fix that piece of fabric.

"It will not be simple, it was an important family. He's a senior government official and she's a top-level business woman, rummaging through their lives will be complicated" Greg reflects, sighing.

"But we have to do it, if we want to come to terms with it" Robert adds with a shrug.

At that moment Greg's phone rings and he takes it without even looking at who it is.

"Yes, here Lestrade" he responds by looking away from the kitchen.

"Lestrade… Holmes, Mycroft Holmes. I guess you’re on the spot now" the cold and authoritative voice of Sherlock's brother is not a surprise for the inspector. He imagined that the upper echelons of the government would immediately begin to move, knowing the news.

"Yes, of course I'm on the spot, even if I'd rather be somewhere else" he says, turning his back to Robert, who now tries to understand who he's talking to.

"I guess so, my men on the spot told me. This is why I call you Lestrade, the case we have to close it as soon as possible, with the minimum fuss as possible"

"Mycroft, this will not be easy, you know better than me at this point that the situation may even be long. The cameras were all out of use, even those in the street throughout the block and we still have to understand how this was possible. At this moment, the only thing we know is that here there is a butchery”

"I know everything, so Lestrade you also know who we have to call, we have no choice, we need him. Call him" Mycroft says, with his tone that does not allow replicas.

"He's your brother, you could call him" Greg tells him, slightly impatient by this forced intrusion of the government in the investigation that has not even started yet, even though he almost certainly would have asked Sherlock for help anyway.

"We have no time to waste. You call him so we do before, he doesn’t always answer me, you  know it well. You will find me at the Saint Bart hospital, I want to follow the autopsies and the analysis closely" and said that he closes the communication, without even a greeting.

Greg looks at the silent phone and almost wants to pull it against the wall. He finds Sherlock's brother so unbearable. He then turned to Robert who had listened silently to the conversation.

"Call him Lestrade, this time call him" he simply says, before returning to look at that piece of black fabric in the shape of a heart and at the victim, around which now the men of the scientific department begin their real work.


	13. Chapter 13

**London - 44 Eaton Square – 23 March 2018 - 6.00 p.m.**

The atrium of Irene's house is in the dark. In her living room on the ground floor, their dresses are on the floor. From the floor above you can see the soft light coming from the master bedroom. Their voices that speak and laugh now replace the laments, which in the last hours were almost the only audible sound along with their breaths. In the big bed, they are both naked, lying on one side facing each other. One of Irene's legs intertwines with his, while Sherlock's arm is around her waist. With his hand, he continually caresses the line of her hips, her back and soft buttocks. They both smile, clearly relaxed and satisfied. Her hair is now loose on her shoulders. Those of him terribly ruffled.

"Alright then, how do we proceed?" she asks, raising a hand to caress his face and fix a rebellious curl and then undo it again.

"Well, if you let me take a moment to breathe, I have some ideas on how to proceed" he replies smiling slyly.

"But what a brash and insatiable boy" she says to him laughing "seriously, you know what I mean. Sooner or later, your brother will know that I'm alive and I'm in town… and he will do anything to keep me away from you, you know” Irene tells him, fiddling with his fingers now on his chest.

Sherlock closes his eyes talking, enjoying those moments of absolute relaxation that not even mentioning his brother can disturb.

"Don’t worry, he will not succeed" he tells her serenely.

Irene looks at him trying to understand what he means exactly.

"I don’t know what you have in mind and it almost scares me to suppose it" she says, looking at him with ill-concealed suspicion now.

Sherlock laughs at her expression.

"I'm not going to kill my brother, even if I don’t hide that sometimes I thought about it" he replies smiling.

"Oh well, not that I would be particularly impressed, but it would be difficult to see you if you locked up in some maximum security prison then" she tells him, just giggling.

 At that moment, Sherlock's phone, left on the bottom floor, starts ringing again. It has been doing this for almost five hours at regular intervals, but neither has been worried about it until now.

"Maybe you should go and answer" Irene says to him with a smile "maybe the country is collapsing and they need you" she adds in an ironic tone.

"I really hope so… if I get up from this bed for something less, I could eat alive whoever is on the other side of the phone" Sherlock replies, with a resigned sigh. Without worrying about dressing, he barefoot leaves the room and descends downstairs. He reaches the phone to see the calls, a dozen at least, by Lestrade and as many from Mycroft. There is also a message from John.

**John W.:** I know you have other priorities right now, but it's really important. Call us as soon as you can. Anyway, I did not tell anyone where you are.

Sherlock sighs and, after glancing upstairs, he dials Lestrade's number.

"Here I am. What's going on?" He listen carefully to Greg, who is talking for a few minutes "I see. Is the material you told me about at Molly's lab? Well... are you all there? Is there also Mycroft? Very well".

Sherlock reflects for a few moments then starts talking.

"I'll have to see all the material collected, the photos of the bodies, the autopsy folders and also I have to ask the opinion of an expert in the field. Do not worry Greg, I'll take care of contacting one... see you at Molly's laboratory in about an hour"

Then he closes the conversation and, resting the phone on a shelf, observes the clothes scattered on the ground along with a series of objects, thrown down from the table and a bedside table. He smiles amused then collects his clothes and that of Irene and returns upstairs.

Back in the room, he puts their clothes on a chest and looks at Irene, still lying in bed watching him.

"From your expression I imagine that a new game has begun" she says to him serenely.

Sherlock smiles as he approaches her and, sitting on the edge of the bed, bends over to kiss her.

"Not that I like less this game with you, but yes, another game is starting" he says in a whisper, "however I have to ask you something" he stops and looks at her now seriously "even at least two or three"

"If it's something morbidly perverse, I already tell you yes" Irene tells him in a mischievous tone, smiling at his puzzled expression for a few moments.

"In fact, from a certain point of view, it could also be considered as such" he says to her, smiling in turn, while Irene, arching a surprised eyebrow, looks at him at the same time intrigued.

"I'm all ears then" she adds, finally preparing to listen to him.


	14. Chapter 14

**London - Saint Bart Hospital - March 23, 2018 - 7.00 p.m.**

In Molly's lab, tension is causing Mycroft Holmes to lose patience, while he is nervously pacing up and down. Sprawling, he looks back at his watch and checks his phone, hoping for good news from his men, but they do not arrive. The case is now breaking out on the news online, soon even in those on national TV, and he has already received at least three calls from the highest personalities of the government and of the Crown, that expect answers quickly. The fact that Sherlock managed to evade the tracing of his phone, unnerves him considerably. Not knowing where he is and above all knowing that, maybe, only his little brother can solve the problem, irritates him even more. He turns back to John and for the tenth time at least he asks the same question.

"John, are you really sure you do not know where he is from this morning? It's seven o'clock in the evening, could not he tell you where he was going when he left the house?"

John looks at him without showing any uncertainty in his voice or his gaze.

"Absolutely Mycroft, I have already told you several times, and anyway, he let it be known that he would arrive. At times he will be here and you can ask him directly if you're so curious” he says, then returning with his gaze, together Greg, at the screen of the laptop, to look for clues on the fabric that Molly has been testing for hours.

Robert, behind them, is reading some reports printed by the various websites and catalogues that they found on the net and his engrossed gaze shows no signs of having found anything interesting that could help them.

"I'm not curious, I'm worried about what my brother does when no one knows where he is. Normally, they are never good things" Mycroft adds, looking at the clock again and, resuming walking around the lab, he goes towards the wall opposite the entrance door, noticing a small crack in the plaster.

"As long as that this place doesn’t fall on our heads" he whispers, raising his eyes to the sky.

Molly smiles behind him, remembering the moment when Sherlock punched the wall, mentally promising to talk to him in a moment of calm. She noted how in the past few days he was particularly silent and closed on himself and she thinks that the reason could still be the same. Taken from these thoughts, she turns back to the table in the middle of the laboratory to fix some tools and at that moment the door opens.

Sherlock holds his hand on the handle and starts to enter. His dark curls seem more rebellious than usual. His piercing light eyes shine particularly. A slight smile cracks his lips.

Molly looks at him and immediately notices something different, very different from what she had seen him in the past few days.

"Good evening everyone" he says entering "I brought with me an expert in the field who can help us" he adds, taking a few steps. Behind him appears Irene, her hair again collected in a perfect and elegant hairstyle, she wears a dark coat on a black sheath dress, which on any other woman would have appeared sober, but which she brings with the ambiguous and seductive elegance that distinguishes her.

"Greg, Molly, this is Irene Adler" Sherlock says, helping her to take off her coat "Mycroft and John, you already know them" he finally says, putting her coat together with his on the coat rack. He then stops looking at Robert and after a few seconds he remembers having met him during a case some years before, when a minor was kidnapped. Obviously, he doesn’t remember his name. Robert for his part, imagining it, nods and introduces himself to both.

Irene takes a few steps closer to the table. Her eyes rest on the inspector and on Molly, whom she heard about from John's blog.

"Good evening to everyone" she says with her warm voice and that enigmatic smile.

Molly responds to the greeting and looks at her in surprise. She recognized her from that photo on Sherlock's phone and now understands what's different about her friend, admitting to herself that this woman has just something magnetic, because she also struggles not to look at her.

Greg, on the other hand, is so dumbfounded that he has remained silent, with the coffee cup suspended in mid-air, and John at his side after a while takes it from him, for fear that he will drop it on the laptop.

Robert for his part doesn’t seem enchanted by the beauty of Irene, but he is certainly intrigued by her presence. Although he has never attended the detective, he doesn’t remember knowing that he had ever presented himself with an expert of any kind, given his marked self-love.

Irene then turns her gaze on John.

"Good evening, John, it's a pleasure to see you again" she says with a slight nod of her head, in a silent thank you, that perhaps he will understand. Sherlock told her many things in these hours together.

"Good evening Irene" John replies simply.

"I hope you appreciated my suggestions for your blog in the last few months" she adds with a particular smile.

John slams his eyes lightly weighing those words and now understands that he was not his friend to correct his post, as Sherlock had repeatedly stated, but she was.

"I see that, as Sherlock, you are in the habit of using my laptop without my consent, even at a distance" John says sighing.

"But my corrections have been appreciated by the readers of the blog, you have to admit it. However, the hacker who gave me access to your PC has also installed such protection on the wi-fi network of 221B, that now, apart from me, no one else will ever be able to access it. In short, you should thank me" she finally adds with an amused smile.

John still sighs resigned without adding anything else.

Finally, the woman stops to observe Mycroft, who has remained paralyzed at the back of the room. The surprised and bewildered expression of the ice man, as he is sometimes called, it's the most exhilarating thing Irene has seen in recent times and she struggles not to laugh.

"Good evening Mycroft, I see that you have not changed at all" she finally says, approaching now to the table, where Sherlock was already starting to look closely at the sample of fabric detected at the crime scene, after looking at all the photos and analysis of the autopsies.

"Good evening Irene, I can’t say the same thing about you. The last time I thought I saw your head detached from the body. I must be clearly wrong... again" Mycroft replies with his sharp and sarcastic tone that distinguishes him, that always hides any kind of emotion he may have, even if he ever has.

"Yes, your brother was kind enough to make this not happen. Did not he tell you?" Irene asks, keeping the same ironic and sarcastic tone of him. Then she moves her gaze on the fabric that Sherlock is holding. A flap of black leather in the shape of a heart. Apparently, it looks like a kind of latex but when she takes it from the detective's hands, she immediately realizes that it’s not, at least not entirely.

"This skin is not a common fabric" she says, losing interest completely in Mycroft, who, for his part, with a sigh, avoids commenting on the situation further. Sherlock, who had, amused, silently observed the exchange between Irene John and his brother, is now also caught in the observation of that black heart.

"It seems latex but there is also something else, to the touch I feel something inside, like some filaments" he says, raising the look on Molly then "have you already tested its components?"

Molly nods, passing him the document with the results of the examinations carried out.

"No fabric of our knowledge is composed in that way and with those internal filaments. We have been doing research for hours in all the suppliers in the sector, but no one has ever produced something similar. Perhaps it was only this heart-shaped flap produced by the murderer, that could be left as a signature" Molly says, summarizing the results of their analysis and research.

Irene listens carefully and then with a nod of denial of the head starts talking again.

"No, this is not produced manually. It’s a very elaborate fabric, it takes special and professional instruments to do it and there are few in this country. They are expensive and very cumbersome machines. They must have a large and structured laboratory" the woman says, then placing the flap under the lens of a microscope to look at it closely.

Sherlock listens to Irene carefully, storing all of her information that are immediately associated with others in his mental palace. He knows exactly what machines she is talking about and, in his mind, he has already listed the laboratories in the country and in London. Not many, but the field must be restricted. He gets up and goes to the computer, where John and Greg were working, making space between the two to get hold of it.

"Tell me if I'm wrong, it's a high-end fabric, probably tailor-made and on specific request. We can therefore exclude the laboratories in the southern provinces, more for an average and cheap clientele, and those in the north, because in disuse from before some of those elements, present in the fabric, were used" he talks to Irene and to himself, reasoning out loud as always. "So, the London ones remain essentially, but even these four would exclude them, because they are too well known and aimed at a wide audience" he quickly beats his fingers on the keyboard, selecting three laboratories left in the list.

"You are not wrong" Irene says, raising her eyes from the microscope now "should remain three of possible laboratories, but I would also exclude another one, that of Johnathan Hemme. The filaments contained in this fabric are used to conduct electricity. I think it's part of a suit and, once made to wear, just a small electric shock to make sure that it spreads throughout the body of the wearer. It’s a strongly sadistic practice, that goes beyond simple play. The pain and burns it can cause are immense" she says, holding that black heart in her hands "one of my suppliers once told me about it. He told me that these suites were produced only on request by two laboratories. Out of the catalogue obviously not traceable in any way" she puts the black heart on the table "I never wanted one, because it’s not the kind of domination that I enjoy, so I'm sorry but more than that for now I can’t help you" she says, finally looking towards him across the table.

Sherlock nods, printing the names and addresses of the selected laboratories, then turning to Greg and Robert.

"Now it's up to you to get the most information from these two laboratories. Maybe John and I can go and visit them tomorrow, to see which of the two hypotheses I have in mind is the correct one" he hands the list to Robert standing next to him, then he gets up to Irene.

"You did a lot, I would have spent more time without your help" he says smiling.

"Oh please, now you also have sweet eyes?" Mycroft blurts out, after he had avoided talking in the last few minutes letting them work "you are ridiculous, or crazy, I have not decided yet" he adds with an irritated tone.

"Madness seems to be a familiar trait, Mycroft, but you must have taken only that ridiculous, I suppose" Sherlock answers, unable to resist this eternal battle with his brother.

"Good. Miss Adler, on behalf of the government thank you for your help, but this will not stop me from having to take action. You both know, I can’t allow you to keep important personalities in check again with your activity" the tone of Mycroft is decisive and ironic at the same time.

Irene looks at him defying him openly.

"Don’t worry Mycroft, I made a promise to Sherlock" she says serenely.

"Did you promise him to stop your business? And Sherlock believes it too?" Mycroft answers with a sarcastic laugh.

"Not at all, he would never ask me this. But I promised him that I would not take pictures or videos again. He personally removed each piece of equipment from my playroom" Irene speaks calmly and quietly, watching amused Mycroft's reactions.

Sherlock, behind her, lets them talk, enjoying the scene. Irene is a fearsome adversary that even his brother cannot crush or intimidate in any way.

"Those photos and videos are your protection, I can’t believe you will give up" Mycroft underlines, not understanding where the two want to arrive because he perceives that they have something in mind.

Sherlock now takes Irene's coat helping her to wear it.

"You are right, dear brother, but she will no longer need it, because you will protect her. The best protection she can have on British land" he says, standing behind Irene and placing his hands on her shoulders, while she softly leanings against him from behind.

"And why should I do it?" Mycroft asks, narrowing his eyes, expecting now some unpleasant surprise.

"Because if something happened to her I would die. And you don’t want to see me dead, are you?" Sherlock simply adds.

Mycroft remains disconcerted by his brother's words. He no longer answers, he doesn’t know what to answer in front of an admission of the kind aloud, that he would never have expected.

Sherlock squeezes his hands around Irene's shoulders for a moment and then pulls away to get his coat.

"And then I'm sure, Mycroft, that very few will dare to touch her, you know. Especially now that they know that Irene is the woman of your little brother. You'll see that you will not have much work to do" he adds, enjoying the surprised expression of Mycroft for a few moments.

"What does it mean now that they know?" his brother asks him with suspicion.

Sherlock takes Irene by the hand and walks towards the door.

"John you know Irene’s website, open it… good evening to all. John, tomorrow morning, at eleven o’clock, Baker Street" finally he adds, before leaving the laboratory with Irene.

The two disappear from view and now in the laboratory only their steps are heard moving away along the corridors.

John, Greg, Robert and Molly witnessed the scene without saying a word.

Greg actually didn’t understand anything and can’t believe that this gorgeous woman has a relationship with that inconclusive Sherlock.

Robert seems really surprised, because this is an absolute novelty for him. No woman ever seemed to have been in the detective's interest until then.

Once the two of them leave the room, John opens Irene's website and Greg whistles in admiration.

"Ah, that's why she was an expert in this field" he comments admiringly.

John now reads a post written less than an hour ago.

 

**I'm back**

**some of you will still hear the blows I will decide to bestow**

**some of you will still feel their intolerable nullity**

**I know you miss me**

**and I know you know that I miss none of you**

**none of you who will still cross that door**

**will never have a shred**

**of my attention**

**of my essence**

**of my soul**

**of my heart**

**none of you**

**except One:**

**#SHERLOCKED**

 

Everyone, including Mycroft, read that message of considerable strength. John then clicks on the final word, that clearly highlights a link. It opens a new page where, with the hashtag #SHERLOCKED, already open fifty comments and also photos and videos. John clicks on some photos, where Irene and Sherlock are coming out of her house while they kiss. There is also a video that takes the same scene and under it there are twenty commentaries of the detective's fans. Apparently, the possible story between the two seems to be very welcome.

Mycroft sighs resignedly.

"But what good they were, they have designed it really well" he comments wearily "those two together will be a constant source of trouble, already I know"

"What do you mean?" Greg asks, still struck by all the news.

"But please, in less than an hour she writes a post and someone is ready outside her house to pick up the lovebirds? They organized it to tie my hands, they will soon become the most talked couple of the web and the tabloids. If I tried to separate them, I would create a national case now" he adds ironically, heading for the lab exit.

"Good evening everyone, we will update tomorrow. We have more important things to do now than to think of the two of them" and said that he definitely comes out of the laboratory.

The three friends and Robert watch him go out and after a few minutes, without even knowing why, they start laughing, a laugh so contagious that for a few minutes leaves almost everyone breathless.

"What about a beer?" Greg asks to the other three "I think there is to toast, so maybe you tell me something more, because I believe I’ve lost something important and instead you two know more than me" then he looks at Robert "that list can wait an hour, you can take a coke or a cold tea if you want"

Robert seems to think carefully about his friend's words.

"In fact, you're not wrong. Detach the mind for a moment helps it to free itself and then to think better" he says, putting the list in his jacket pocket "and then, I admit that now the curiosity devours me. This was an unexpected surprise" he adds, pointing to the Irene’s website still visible on the laptop.

John closes the laptop now nodding.

"Sherlock always surprises you, you never know what to expect from him" he says almost more to himself "and anyway, a beer takes me right now, so maybe I forget those horrendous photos of the victims" he adds, before leaving the laboratory, leaving behind him the ugly feeling that the heart of black skin provoked him every time he looked at it.


	15. Chapter 15

**London - Baker Street - 25 March 2018 - 9.30 a.m.**  
  
John Watson's car stops in front of Baker Street on 221B. The day before, together with his friend and Robert Evans, after having seen closely the three corpses in the morgue, they spent most of the day in the two laboratories indicated by Irene, from where the latex dress, probably a suit, came out and from which comes that disturbing black heart. It was not easy to get the names of those who bought these particular garments, but thanks to the information found by Robert on the two owners, his pressures on the employees of the laboratories and the spirit of observation of Sherlock, they managed to identify the secret archives of both and their private homes. So that night, contravening any rule and law, the two friends have cleverly broken into. Waiting for a search warrant would have been a waste of time and John, now coming down from the car, sighs reminding himself that he has participated in two break-ins for a good cause. Stopping that maniac is certainly of vital importance, before he kills someone else.

He opens the door of the 221B and enters, leaving the jacket in the entrance next to Sherlock's coat. Mrs. Hudson is intent on vacuuming her apartment and from far away she smiles, waving to him with a wave of her hand. John then climbs the stairs to access the detective's apartment. The door is closed but certainly he is not with a customer. When he follows such an important case, he focuses only on that. He then opens the door and enters the now empty living room. The laptop on the desk is turned off, his phone placed beside it, a coat is on a chair. He hears noises coming from the kitchen and a scent of coffee and toast.

"I would like a good coffee right now, you know, we did it late last night and the guilt of having illegally introduced me into those houses still devour me" he says ironically, looking at the kitchen where Sherlock, wearing only pajama pants, is finishing toasting the last slices of bread. On his back, a series of red marks are quite visible, which John now looks at, arching an eyebrow.

Sherlock turns to him, not paying attention to his expression.

"Feelings of guilt are a useless moral tinsel in this case John" he says, then returning to toast the bread.  
"Sit down and have breakfast, very intense days are coming and it will be better to face them in good shape"

John sighs and doesn’t even ask him how he knows that this morning he left home without eating. He approaches the table and sees two glasses filled with orange juice, two plates and two cups ready to pour coffee. He is about to sit down at one of the two seats when Sherlock approaches the table carrying a third plate and a third cup, before turning back to get the hot coffee pot.

"Oh... I see" John simply says sitting down. At that moment the bedroom door open and after a few moments Irene appears on the kitchen door. She wears Sherlock's dressing gown, her hair is loose on her shoulders and, even without makeup and clearly just awake, her face is always beautiful and intriguing.

"Oh yes, so much coffee please" she says, entering and strong inhaling the aroma of coffee.  
"Good morning John" she greets then approaches Sherlock, who is still laying the toast on a large plate "and good morning to you too" she says placing a hand on his back and one on his arm, before getting up on the tip of the feet to give him a light kiss on the lips.

"Good morning, breakfast is ready, go and sit down" he says smiling at her.

Irene then detaches from him looking with a mischievous smile those red marks on his back.  
"I think I have an exaggerated moment tonight" she says, going to sit down.  
Sherlock does not answer as he brings toast and jams to the table along with a cheese platter. He sits down and after looking at John, who is clearly enjoying the situation, he returns to look at Irene.

"You know, you should ask for a license to carry firearms for those nails" he answers now with a tone between the serious and ironic while pouring coffee in everyone's cups. Then take the toasted bread that distributes in the various dishes and returns to look at Irene "anyway, you'd do better to wear a scarf for a few days" he adds with a certain triumphant tone it would seem.

Irene opens her eyes a moment, looking at him, then she turns her gaze on her own right and left shoulder, and on both sides, between the neck and the shoulder, some red marks are quite evident. She then raises her gaze again on him and almost seems to want to fulminate him with those eyes.  
"What are you, a vampire?" She asks, looking at him now, who seems smiling and satisfied. Then she sighs resigned and, taken a slice of bread, she begins to enjoy breakfast.

In all of this, John witnessed the scene trying to keep himself from laughing. Already see the friend prepare and serve a breakfast is a very rare event, but then, be able to understand which of the two wins on the other, is really a business and he realizes that basically is what they like both. They continually challenge each other in any situation and field, they have done since they know each other and it’s their favorite game, apparently.

Breakfast continues almost in silence now and when all three have left only the coffee to finish, they speak again.

"Have you looked at the names of the buyers?" John asks, sipping his bitter coffee.

"Yes, but I have not yet made a precise idea, I need to know more about them. I was counting on putting myself now to the laptop to find some news on the web about their lives" Sherlock replies, placing the now empty cup on the table.

"Maybe I can help you, I know many of them. In this circle for the most part we know each other, even if not personally" Irene intervenes, placing her empty cup too.

Sherlock nods and gets up going to get the list of the four names he left on the mantelpiece, impaled by a knife, as he always does when he has something outstanding to solve.

Irene and John follow him into the living room and while John sits down in his chair Sherlock delivers the list to Irene.

"Take a look, I'm going to change in the meantime" he says and without adding anything else, he goes to the bedroom, closing the door behind him.

Irene, reading the list, sits in Sherlock's armchair, folding her legs beneath her in a comfortable position. She reflects on those names nodding, no wonder that at least three of those names are those who use such garments. Certainly, in this circle they are known as the most dedicated to violent sadism, but to get to that brutal series of murders is a huge step.

Absorbed in her thoughts, she does not notice the passing of time or even being observed by John, who also in this he notes a certain similarity with Sherlock. He could now get up and leave and she would not notice, just as he did a thousand times with his friend.

The bedroom door opens and Sherlock returns to the living room. He has now worn pants and shirt and approaches his chair, where she is now curled up, sitting on the armrest.  
"So what do you think?" He asks, drawing her attention.

Irene looks at him and with a finger indicates the names of the list.  
"I don’t know what to think, contrary to me they maintain a double life. Only a few people know their dedication to domination and these few people generally don’t talk to anyone. Apart from me now, but by pure chance, if it were not for you Sherlock, I wouldn’t tell about them to anyone" she says, raising her eyes to him.

Sherlock nods listening to her carefully.

"And maybe we can take advantage of this unexpected advantage, that the killer did not foresee. Even if now coming to know the two of us, he could also alarm, but this could lead him to make a mistake and that's what we need to capture him" he replies, inviting her to continue.

"Yes... you're probably right" she goes back to look at the list now indicating the first name.  
"Richard Bennett, lawyer of a large studio, prominent personalities of the so-called good society. Married to a rich heiress and from her began his fortune. No children, apparently devoted only to work and to travel around the world with his wife. When he’s in public, he looks like a little dog following his wife. I have heard from certain sources, however, that he is a vicious sadist, who is particularly violent but who prefers men for his sadistic sessions. I think he has an apartment that he uses for these things in a south area of the city. Obviously, the wife is totally unaware of this side of him and none of his family members or work colleagues has ever had the slightest idea of how he really is"

Sherlock stores all information so he takes the laptop and delivers it to John.  
"I need to know who among them has some computer skills, necessary to be able to disable all the security cameras of an entire neighborhood, and medical, useful to remove that way the heart of the woman". He then returns to sit on the armrest and invites Irene to continue.

"Carl Seymour" Irene indicates the second name "financial broker of the highest level. He never married but he frequents many women. He gets engaged every two months with a different woman. I believe they do not last long because he gets bored. He also keeps his sadistic tendencies hidden from those he attends at work and in the family and social sphere. In general, the real sadists are just like that, they almost always have a double life" she reflects now speaking for a moment to herself "I have never known someone who has been the object of his attention, but I know who built his dungeon. He has also described it to me and I believe he is a master who uses only the most painful violence and practices. From what I have been told, he has built a real underground dungeon in the cellars of a villa outside London, with cells and instruments of torture of all kinds" she ends up talking, looking back at Sherlock, absorbed now in his thoughts.

"John looks for information on this Seymour and on the villa please" he says and then indicates the third name "go ahead"

"Mark Landon, well, maybe he is the least sadistic of the four. To what they told me, he is very clumsy. He is a government official but medium level. Well-off but not rich family. Married and with two children, he lives in a house on the northern outskirts of London. Apparently a very ordinary person, I met him once at a party and the impression of mediocrity that I had was confirmed by those who had the displeasure of meeting him. Sadistic certainly but approximate. His is almost exclusively a sexual approach. I don’t even know why he bought this garment, I don’t think he would know what to do with it" Irene's voice is clearly perplexed as her expression is.

Sherlock watches her after listening to her, nodding "I understand" he says simply, without adding anything else "it remains the last one" he says to her, pointing to the list.

Irene returns to look at the names and nods.

"Morgan Lartimer, a surgeon specializing in neurosurgery. One of the most acclaimed doctors, considered among the best ever. Nothing is known of almost his private life. No girlfriend or wife or boyfriends. He seems more like married to his job. He travels continuously, they call him for particular interventions also abroad. And although he spends his life saving people, he seems to have particular pleasure in seeing them suffer during his dominating sessions. He makes no preference between men and women and what they have told me, he is totally dedicated only to torture. He certainly knows how to use that suit, maybe even making sure not to leave too many obvious spots on the skin, because he knows very well each technique and every tool of these practices. He doesn’t have his own dungeon but he always goes to the houses of his slaves".

When she finished describing the last name of the list, Irene folded it and returned it to Sherlock, who, still sitting next to her, took it while is completely absorbed in his thoughts. After a few moments he gets up, bringing the list back on the mantelpiece to stop it again with the knife.

John listened to everything and while Irene spoke he did various research on the names.

"Sherlock, if it’s an important point, apart from Lartimer, who is a doctor, Carl Seymour also has medical skills, even if hinted at. Before becoming a broker, he attended a nursing course as a young man, who then gave up halfway, and as a broker he uses a lot of IT tools"

  
Sherlock silently turns to them both and after a few minutes he nods, as if he has understood something important.  
"Thanks to both of you, you helped me a lot. Now we have to find a way to frame the killer" he says with a sure tone of himself.


	16. Chapter 16

**London - La City Financial District – 26 March 2018 - 4.00 p.m.**  
  
From his office on the fifteenth and last floor, Carl Seymour observes that district of London, that since the nineteenth century is considered the most important economic and financial center in the world. The large windows extend at an angle and allow to have a remarkable view. It always gives him the feeling of being at the center of the world from that office and of having a privileged position, above all, like a cynical and perverse divinity that plays with all those small and breathless ants, that run from one side to the other. Considered the best financial broker of the last twenty years, Carl Seymour loves to see all around him, from customers to colleagues, begging his attentions. Because one of his tips can make you earn thousands of pounds but to have him against can instead send you bankrupt in less than no time and without him ever getting his hands dirty.

And yet all this power, the women who continually offer themselves to him on silver plates, the men who do the same, all bore him deeply. He seems never to be happy, nothing really satisfies him, except when he is in those cellars, in his secret place that only very few know and from which very few come out exhausted and marked for life. Those moments are the only ones that make him happy. It does not excite him, it’s not a sexual matter for him, he is simply happy, satisfied inwardly when he hears their screams.

The lights of the city below him are already lighting up, even if the days slowly begin to lengthen.

It was a very profitable working day and when he looks at the clock he decides that it can also end here.

He then turns to his desk, taking a list of names from a drawer, that he opens with a small key he holds in a jacket pocket. They are few and very select names of a restricted circle. He had long wanted to organize such a thing, just to vary a bit from his habits and to exchange opinions on some techniques that he wants to deepen. It could be fun after all.

He looks at the last name he has recently added at the list. He was particularly intrigued by the latest news concerning this woman, who had never attracted his attention before. He always admires strength, power, courage. And it takes courage to show herself to the world in this way.

It would also be fun though, he imagines now, to hear her screams in his dungeon. Crushing the courage of others is extremely intriguing.

He then sits at the desk and, opened the PC, he accesses to the dark web through an encrypted connection. He enters the private inbox and from there he sends a series of invitations for a dinner to be held in his villa.

Satisfied he closes everything and puts the list in the drawer, that again he locks.

Closed the lights he leaves the office. He has an appointment at the villa for the night and he is certain that it will be a very rewarding night.


	17. Chapter 17

**London - Baker Street - 27 March 2018 - 11.00 a.m.**  
  
Sherlock, standing in front of one of the living room windows, is talking on the phone with his brother for almost twenty minutes and now he begins to be impatient. Sometimes his craving for control, disguised as a concern for him, irritates him. Now he is no longer a fragile and insecure child nor the young man of a few years ago, perhaps too rigid and full of himself, not to see those truths hidden in the folds of human emotions that surround him. He still lets him talk for a few minutes before interrupting him.  
"Mycroft I told you that you don’t have to worry about anything, I know what I do and I have a plan in mind... I have already contacted Evans and Lestrade don’t worry... now go back to your business and let it close this once for all" he says with a sigh before saying goodbye and closing the conversation.

Behind him John is sitting at the desk in front of the laptop. Carefully he studies a map of the area surrounding Carl Seymour's villa. A completely isolated area where it’s impossible to get close to cars and vehicles without being noticed, then he reflects, back to look at the map of the villa and the cellars where the dungeon was set up.  
"Any plan you have in mind I don’t see how you can approach this villa and go in there looking for clues, it’s guarded by cameras in every corner around the perimeter of the villa and any movement would be detected" John says, lifting up the look on him stood still in front of the window to observe the road "but then, are you so sure that it is there that we will find proof of his guilt?"

"I'm absolutely certain that in those cellars I will fit the killer, John" he replies without turning again, his hands in the pockets of his trousers, his eyes always on the road below him.

"And how do you plan to sneak in there? It's a fortress" John asks, not convinced "but if the suspicions are so well founded, why do not we ask Greg or your brother to get a warrant to search the villa?"

"We have no certain proof, the names of that list we obtained illegally, no judge would authorize it, especially against a prominent personality of the economic world" Sherlock still answers with a calm and sure tone.

"But if you enter the villa illegally, any evidence then it will not help" John finally exclaims feeling that the story he likes less and less.

"In fact I will not enter illegally. I will be invited to enter and any trial will be perfectly legal" Sherlock adds, turning now to his friend who looks at him puzzled.

Downstairs meanwhile Mrs. Hudson, heard a light knock, goes to open the front door. When she opens in front of her, Irene smiles at her. She likes this woman who is attending Sherlock in recent days. She does not really know why, to tell the truth, but she has noticed the beneficial effect she has on Sherlock and this is enough for her. She thinks her business is a little questionable, but you can’t have everything from life and if Sherlock is all right, it’s okay. After all, she herself had married a man who ran a large drug cartel. Sometimes in life one must also know how to adapt, she thinks while letting her in.

"Good morning Mrs. Hudson" Irene tells her as she enters and leaves her coat in the hallway.

"Sherlock is upstairs... John is here" Mrs. Hudson tells her, closing the door and then returning to her apartment.

Irene then climbs the stairs moving with her innate elegance, highlighted by a full trousers and shirt that highlights her thin waist and soft hips, on which she wears a short jacket. When she reaches the upper floor, Sherlock's apartment door is open and she sees him standing in the middle of the room, smiling. That smile and those eyes make her lose a heartbeat every time and she is always amazed of that. She feels like a little girl, like the girl she's never been. This feeling amuses her and terrifies her at the same time, but she can’t control it at all.  
"Here I am" she says simply, turning a simple nod to John, who answers the same way from the desk, as she approaches Sherlock, then greeting him with a light kiss on his lips.  
"I brought it to you" she says, taking an invitation card from her jacket pocket, that she has printed in color before leaving her house "but I don’t know if I can give it to you" she adds, delivering the card in his hands.

John looks up at the card as Sherlock goes to his chair where he watches it carefully.  
"What's that?" He finally asks, getting up from his desk to go and sit in front of his friend.

"An invitation to an exclusive dinner" Sherlock tells him without looking up from the card.

"A direct invitation to me Sherlock" Irene underlines approaching but remaining standing between the two. "So, I'll go there, I already told you" she adds resolutely, crossing her arms over her breasts.

"We don’t talk about it, it's too dangerous" he immediately replies, looking up now with a determined tone.

John sighing rises from the chair and, stretched his hand, he takes the card from the hands of Sherlock, then returning to sit down. He sees a crest or something like that, the design of a chain wrapping around a dagger on a red background. He arches an eyebrow, not knowing whether to find it disturbing or ridiculous. Under the emblem a few lines:

 **"It will be a pleasure to have you at my table to discuss our common interests together with a few other trusted colleagues. You can be accompanied by a trusted person if you wish.**  
**9.00 p.m. Villa Longarn. Carl Seymour”**

John puts the card on the bedside table next to the chair and returns to watch the two still facing each other without wanting to give way.

"I have to face it, you can’t go there Irene, it's out of the question" Sherlock is adamant in his decision and looks at Irene standing next to him.

"You can’t go there, the invitation is addressed to me not to you" she answers with the same tone of challenge "I can enter without arousing suspicion and maybe even push him to talk and show me the dungeon. This kind of men can’t wait to strut with others like him and with a woman maybe he feels safer and less threatened " she adds with an equally determined look.

"I can always say that you gave me the invitation, after all our history is now almost in the public domain, it could also be plausible my presence" Sherlock still responds with a shrug.

"Don’t be silly, they all know that you have no interest in these practices, you would simply put him on alert" she tells him, sure of what she says.

"But he is already in alarm, I bet he can’t wait to meet me" he replies without breaking up.

John attends that exchange, that could go on for months without leading to a conclusion, because neither clearly wants to give up, and got up from the chair he decides to intervene.

"Now enough, neither of you will go alone in that villa" his voice is so determined and authoritarian that immediately attracts the attention of both.

"We can’t miss this opportunity John" Sherlock says, looking at him.

"We will not lose it, I just said that neither of you will go alone... because you will go there together" he says with absolute calm.  
"Listen to me, if Irene goes alone you will be out, almost certainly anxious, then not totally lucid, even if you insist on always wanting to seem" he starts to say looking at his friend "if you go alone, we will be anxious, both me and Irene, and above all, you will have less support because she knows how to move in this circle and inside there she can be much more useful than outside" he now observes the two who seem to reflect in silence on his proposal "but I will be out with Greg and Robert, ready to intervene if things go wrong. It seems to me the only acceptable and practicable plan" and finished he sits back in his chair.

Sherlock after a while slightly nods.  
"Yes, I think it can work" he finally answers, with a deep gaze as if he were calculating all the various possible scenarios.

"Well, it seems like an ideal solution, in fact, if we present together it would not be too suspicious" Irene says sitting on the chair near the desk, reflecting at the same time on how she is dragging into Sherlock's life. But then, it was so from the beginning and even in these years, when they were away from each other, she followed every step, sometimes helping him by sending a message with a suggestion obtained from some of her contacts. Being able to solve a puzzle has always been fascinating for her and perhaps that is why she was enchanted by this man and his brilliant intelligence. But now it's not just a matter of solving it but of getting into it. But she knew that it would no longer be possible to go back this way.

"Well, gentlemen, let's get ready for this party" she finally says with a determined look like a cat preparing for a hunt.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is long enough but it's like a ride and should be read in one go. A bit like a single sequence plan, if you allow me the term film. When I wrote it, I spent almost a whole day because it was impossible to stop. I think it's the same thing in reading it. it's a crescendo up to the final scene. I hope you like it and you will thrill how excited it has been for me to imagine it and write it down.

**North of London - Villa Longarn – 27 March 2018 - 9.00 p.m.**  
  
The car of Irene Adler stops in front of the entrance of the large villa, located north of London and surrounded by thick vegetation, keeping privacy within it impenetrable. At the outer gate, in his uniform complete with hat, the driver shows the invitation card to the video door phone to get the opening and now, after stopping the car, he goes down to open the rear door.

Irene is the first to leave the car. She has dark hair collected in a hairstyle with just two small strands left free sideways. The white skin of the face contrasts with the red color of the lipstick, that make her lips even more inviting. She wears a long coat, under which she wears a dark dress with a vertiginous neckline both on her back and between her breasts. A long gap on the right shows the perfect legs, when she walks on high and elegant heels.

Behind her, Sherlock comes out of the car, impeccably dressed, under his ever-present coat, with a dark suit on which he wears an elegant tie, chosen by Irene personally.

The driver closes the door and goes away, to park near the few other cars and their drivers inside the villa, waiting to bring their passengers home at the end of the evening.

Sherlock takes Irene under his arm and after a knowing look they start together towards the entrance of the villa.

A butler waits for them and after taking their coats he points out to them the hall, on the right of the large atrium, where already arrived guests are enjoying an aperitif.

Sherlock observes every detail as they move, the stairs leading to the upper floors, where the master bedrooms and the guests are presumably located, two more rooms to the left of the atrium, a very large study library and the main dining room, the corridor to the left of the stairs, leading to the kitchens and servants' rooms, and finally he notices a door well-closed along the corridor, that should be access to the lower floors, the cellars and even the secret dungeon. He observes all of it in a few seconds with a single glance, without anyone noticing his interest.

Then they stop at the door of the room where a dozen men and women, who are sitting on the various sofas and armchairs, are sipping the aperitifs distributed by the waiters. Attention is immediately magnetized by their entry. Seeing them one next to the other make a certain effect, they are a very beautiful and elegant couple and certainly the main topic of this circle as of others of the last days.

A man who was at the center of a small group comes off to meet them.  
"Miss Adler, I am very pleased that you have accepted my invitation" Carl Seymour smiles affably, bowing his head slightly in a greeting, but his smile is cold, almost chills "Mr. Holmes is a pleasure to meet you. I was expecting your presence tonight, even though I know that the topics we're going to discuss will probably not be of interest to you" the man says with a faint tone of superiority.

Sherlock looks at him for a few moments studying every detail and storing every piece of information he deduces.

"You're wrong Mr. Seymour, to understand certain dynamics can be useful and important for the work I do, and then, I'm always fascinated by the study of various human inclinations" he replies with a sure and vaguely sarcastic tone, so as to dampen that fake smile of Carl Seymour for a few seconds.  
Irene, still under Sherlock's arm, holds her hand lightly on it, as if to keep him from going into a fight with that man. They will not get anything, if those two engage in a verbal battle, in which surely Sherlock would come out winning, but that would lose them the opportunity to see the underground dungeon.  
"Mr. Seymour, your invitation was a surprise, we never got to meet with you before. Our interests, though similar, I believe are different" Irene says in a warm and profound voice, alluding to their different way of understanding domination, that of her especially mental, while that of him purely physical.  
"You’re right Miss Adler, but I'm also fascinated by how you show yourself to the world without veils, I could say It's a feature that I lack. I thought it would be interesting to listen to your point of view"

At that moment a waiter approached with a tray and Sherlock takes two glasses, handing one to Irene. He listens to the two that are conversing for a long time, while sipping his drink without say anything. Obviously, what they say now has little interest for him. His mind is feverishly working, looking for a way to get away, but at the moment it seems impossible and would give too much attention.

Irene on the other hand is trying to distract the guest, whose chatter is absolutely insipid and useless, to tell the truth. But she understood what Sherlock has in mind and also that Carl Seymour somehow thinks he can conquer her. Probably the post that she wrote on the blog and their history, now in the public domain, has triggered in him the cock's syndrome of the chicken coop, she thinks, and smiling she throws herself headlong into the discussion with Seymour, as if he were saying something incredibly important that she shares. And she is a teacher in this. She can manipulate men and women like no one else can. The only one with whom she has never really succeeded in this game is the man she fell in love with.

Carl Seymour is enjoying the moment. He expected the woman to show up with the detective, but this pair is so improbable, that he is certain she can undermine the man in no time from the throne where he has momentarily sat. Not that he really interests Irene, even though he finds her a beautiful woman. But it’s as if in a herd a young lion would undermine the authority of one who has already proclaimed a leader. And then, there is always that image now in his head, to see this woman, so sure of herself and so rash, crying with pain and asking for mercy. The thought alone creates in him a state of inner joy that now he doesn’t think of anything else. He then continues to talk to the woman trying to exclude Sherlock from the conversation and seems to succeed perfectly, because the man has become estranged now.

When they announce that the dinner is ready, with the excuse of wanting to continue the interesting discussion, Carl takes Irene by the arm and accompanies her to the table, where he seats her at his side. Sherlock watches the scene without saying anything, feigning an apparent detachment as if bored. In fact, he's having fun seeing how she can manipulate him easily. A small man who believes he is the king of the world and who will fall ruinously soon, he reflects by sitting at the table beside Irene.

 

Outside the villa, in a street not far away but not visible and well hidden, Robert Evans is sitting in his car and looking at his laptop. Check with fancy that everything is ready when the time comes to intervene. When Sherlock contacted him to put him aside from the plan he had in mind, he intimately rejoiced. This time he will do his part well and if all goes well, he will get his prize. But he didn’t call Lestrade, as Sherlock had asked him to do. That is his case, his personal revenge. Lestrade could have been in the way and he doesn’t want anything to go wrong this time. Again, he watches the laptop carefully and waits for the right moment that is sure to come.

 

The dinner inside the villa ends and all the guests return now to the main room, where they had taken the aperitif. Around the room the large windows overlook a terrace, lit in various angles discretely with oil lamps, that create play of light all around. The various guests are divided into small groups and discuss each other exchanging stories and techniques.

Carl Seymour didn’t leave Irene for most of the evening. A born barker, used to enchanting his clients with a chat of all kinds, he tries to do the same with Irene, thinking of impressing her through the rather detailed stories of some of his sessions.

Irene kept the game all the time and now, talking to him, leads him to the terrace, as if she wanted to withdraw for a moment.

Carl for his part can’t believe it’s so easy to conquer this woman. But then, if someone like that silly detective has done it, for him it's certainly a walk. He no longer knows where he is or even cares. He's just thinking about how to convince her at the end of the evening to stay there with him alone.

Sherlock observes the scene from inside the hall. Oh yes, that woman is really smart and a perfect support. Anyone would believe that her interest in that man is real, seeing them from outside. He looks around, noting how everyone is now totally disinterested in him. Standing in a corner near the door, he waits for the moment when nobody looks at him and, with an almost feline movement, he leaves the room without anyone noticing, except for Irene, who has not lost sight of him for a moment.

Sherlock, once in the hallway, heads for the corridor leading to the kitchens. The waiters are all busy tidying up the dining room and no one cares about him. In the corridor, at that moment deserted, he stops in front of the door that goes down to the cellar and with a few sure movements, extracted a small tool from the pocket, he forces the lock opening it in a few moments. He enters, going down the first steps in the dark, and, only after closing the door behind his back, he takes a small torch, hidden in a pen, from another inside pocket of his jacket. As he imagined, these are the steps leading to the cellars and, reached the bottom of the stairs, he stops in the narrow and damp corridor. On the right almost immediately, there is a large tavern, where hundreds of bottles are stored with extreme care. The tavern does not show anything special and after having scoured it briefly, he continues along the corridor. A new tavern appears on the right of the corridor and here are preserved cheeses and cold cuts, kept at the right temperature with electronic equipment that continuously monitor the environment. The cleaning is accurate and even this area does not present anything that could make one think of something strange or unusual. Again, he proceeds in the corridor but there are no doors or taverns and he finds himself facing a closed wall. He watches it squinting. It is certain that the secret passage is here and there must therefore be some way to open it. He touches the wall carefully and for a long time until he feels a tiny lever hidden in a crack, almost invisible to the naked eye. With the tip of the torch he manages to move the lever and in that moment to his left a part of the wall opens with a click. A perfectly hidden door, covered with plaster, and impossible to identify if you do not look carefully.  
"Found. And now my friend we see who is smarter between us" he whispers to himself and opening that door he enters the secret dungeon.

 

Irene, resting on the wall of the terrace, continues to listen to Carl and his stories. He is a really horrible man, she thinks, whose only pleasure is to feel the physical suffering of others. A weak person who actually uses sadism to feel superior to others. He does not even know what it means to be able to dominate someone with the mind alone, as she does. The use then some tool, some whisk, that is only a consequence that causes pleasure in those who receive it, especially if well done. But the real domination is the mental one and very few know how to implement it. It's been almost a quarter of an hour since Sherlock has disappeared and is probably now in the dungeon. She is not quiet to have let him go alone, but it was the only way and she had understood it since they had entered.  
"Carl, would you take me some more wine, please?" She asks the man in an apparently seductive tone.  
"Surely... I'll be right back" he says, looking puffed up, sure he'd almost gotten what he wanted.

As soon as he walks away, Irene turns to the park. Below her are the parked cars and the drivers who, visibly bored, wait for the evening to end. From the small bag she has with her, she takes a cigarette and a lighter. She raises the lighter, one of very elegant silver, to light the cigarette, but instead of turning it on, she speaks briefly in a whisper.  
"John... Sherlock went by himself... there was no other way... Seymour is here with me but I don’t want him to go alone in that place... if you can, reach it" she finishes speaking, clicks the lighter and turns on the cigarette.

At that moment Carl comes back with two glasses.  
"I didn’t know, Miss Adler, you were smoking" he says, handing her a glass.  
"In fact, I'm trying to stop a long time, but sometimes I can’t say no to a cigarette" she says, turning off the cigarette that had only for a moment brought to the lips "but now I prefer this good wine and an interesting company" she adds, distracting the attention of the man who starts talking again, feeling as if he were the center of the world.

 

Irene Adler's driver gets out of the car where he had been until then, avoiding the company of other drivers like him. In the light of a lamp, John's face appears under the uniform's hat. He sets up his uniform hat on the forehead, trying not to show his face, and casually crosses the parking lot heading to the back door where the kitchen overlooks. He enters with ease, asking one of the waiters where the bathroom is and he is shown a door at the beginning of the corridor, where is the bathroom reserved for servants. They have studied the plan of the villa for a long time and he knows that only a few steps ahead there is the cellar door, where Sherlock probably went. It will certainly remain open, he reflects, and when no one sees him, he quickly passes the bathroom door, tries to open the cellar door and soon he opens it, disappearing inside. He, too, obviously has a small flashlight which he immediately opens.  
"Sherlock" he says in a voice not too loud, not to be heard outside "are you here?" he says in the dark as he begins to go down the stairs.

 

Irene noticed from the corner of the eye John move after his message. Knowing he's catching up with Sherlock reassures her, but she's still not quite sure. There is something that does not come back to her but she can’t understand what. Carl keeps talking to her and where Sherlock is from, he seems not to care. In fact, thinking about it, this is a strange thing, she says to herself. He knows the detective is investigating those murders, but he doesn’t care if he can stick his nose in his villa. Perhaps he thinks his dungeon is inaccessible, too well hidden to be found. Or simply there is nothing compromising and even if they found it would be a hole in the water. He is too quiet, however, too centered on itself and only interested in conquering her apparently. Something is wrong, something does not come back to her and now being there doing nothing but listening to that useless man, seems like a waste of time and makes her feel helpless.  
"Carl... is there a place in this beautiful villa... how to say... more intimate?" She then asks in such a seductive and mischievous tone that perfectly conceals her real thoughts.  
Carl has an intimate victory. He's planning to take her directly to his dungeon, but he doesn’t want anyone to see them, that's his secret place. In a moment he reflects and nods, takes her lightly by the arm.  
"Your companion will not be offended?" He asks triumphantly.  
"He’s probably bored to death, I saw him go in the car where he has his laptop, it will be busy for a long time" she replies with a vague reference to the cars in the parking lot.  
"Very well then... come with me... our guests are so busy in their discussions that they will not care about us" Carl tells him, addressing Irene to the inside of the villa.

They cross the hall and then the atrium. Carl takes her to the library on the other side where there is no one and closes the door with his back to Irene. At that moment he feels a sting in his neck and the world slowly begins to fade as his legs suddenly fail him.

"But what... what" he can only say with a thick voice.

Irene, who lightning had pulled a needle from the bag to hit him, helps him to fall on a chair.

"Sorry dear, but now I have to do more important things" she whispers as she watches him fall asleep heavily, thanks to that powerful sleeping pill with which she had soaked hypodermic needle, brought with herself. She doesn’t know if she's doing the right thing, but something tells her that this is not the man they're looking for, he's not the killer, it's too silly to be, and Sherlock needs to know. She can’t contact John because the hidden radio in the lighter was connected to the car. She must go to look for them both. If someone goes into that room, he will only think that Carl has drunk too much, so, without thinking further, she goes out into the hall again, closing the door behind her back. On her left, the corridor leading to the cellar is occasionally crossed by some waitresses, but the dining room is now arranged and most of them are in the kitchens. She waits a few seconds and as soon as the corridor is free, she approaches the cellar door, opens it and soon she disappears inside.

 

Outside the villa, Robert Evans is watching the laptop closely. He intercepted the radio message sent by Irene to John and understood what is happening. Now, close the laptop and leaving it in the passenger seat, he gets out of the car. With his hand he touches the gun he has in his trouser belt behind his back and that he has checked a thousand times.  
"Alright" he says to himself "the time has come" and with a firm step he heads to one side of the wall, where a large tree from the inside faces with its branches outwards. In a moment he grabs one of the branches with a powerful leap and pulls himself up with the strength of his arms. Few measured movements and with a jump he is inside the villa. He looks around for a few moments, then quickly, but hiding himself continuously, he strides towards the back of the villa in the part farthest from the rooms and also from the kitchen. There, hidden by innumerable vines, there is a service door in disuse but well closed and guarded. The careful study of the maps of the villa and the projects of those who had built the dungeon, a gift brought from one of Irene's contacts, had identified this unattended entrance. A game for someone like him to be able to access them. It had to be used only in case of need, Sherlock had said, whose intent was to legally find proof. Perhaps he thinks of finding the remains of the suit from where it should miss the black heart, left at the scene of the crime. Robert doesn’t think about it for a moment and forces the door lock on the rusty hinges to enter. He accesses an abandoned corridor, long and narrow, which, according to the map, it should come out right in the back of the basement, on the opposite side to which Sherlock must have entered. Silently, trying not to make any noise, he slowly moves, ready to shoot at any moment. At the bottom of the corridor, a second door bars his access, but it does not seem closed, maybe Sherlock tried to open it to see where leading and left it ajar. Without making any noise, he slowly opens it, carefully checking the beating of his heart and his breath. He can’t even make a mistake, not this time, not anymore.

 

Sherlock wanders among the three rooms that make up this hidden place, where the owner of the villa discharges his frustrations and his poor inner life, causing pain and suffering on other lost souls, that only through strong physical pain can feel alive. When someone reaches these levels, it’s no longer a game, this is far beyond those signs that Irene in moments of passion left him on the back, this is intellectual poverty, lack of humanity on all levels. The instruments of torture are of medieval invoice and of every kind. He shakes his perplexed head and looks around again. At that moment a whisper from the corridor makes his name and John appears on the door of the room where he is now.  
"John… what the hell are you doing here, I told you not to move if it was not me to call you" he says, pointing to the small flashlight with a clearly disapproving expression.  
"Irene wasn’t calm that you had come here all alone... and neither I"  he adds entering the room "my God this place is a nightmare and it gives me the chills" he says looking around "found something?"  
"I have not found anything yet and now you do me the pleasure of turning the heels and leave, immediately" he tells him, pointing out the way out with tone that does not seem to admit replies.  
"Oh shut up and let's go around, we'll leave together from this place" John replies, almost without considering him.

At that moment another small torch appears in the room and the figure of Irene stands out on the door.  
"Heck it here too" Sherlock exclaims almost impatient "but you two never do something like I ask you to do it for once?"  
"It’s not him Sherlock... I had to tell you... it’s absolutely not Carl Seymour the killer, he can’t be, he is too full of himself and arrogant and above all banal, he can’t have done that massacre with that precision and cold logic. It's not him I tell you" Irene speaks in one breath as she enters the room.  
"I know it's not him" Sherlock says not at all surprised "I had to imagine that you would have understood too" he reflects talking almost to himself "but now you two have to go away, it's all under control be quiet"

Irene and John remain silent trying to absorb what Sherlock has just said.  
"But if it's not him and you know it... what are we doing here then?" John asks, perplexed.  
"You nothing, and so now you two will go away. I'll catch the killer" Sherlock says quietly, trying to convince them to leave.  
"I don’t know what you have in mind but I don’t like it at all. Why if it's not Carl, this killer should come here now?" Irene asks, squinting as she tries to figure out what she's missing.  
"Because it's me who wants to" Sherlock adds, looking at her.  
At that moment a slow and strong applause can be heard in the corridor.  
"But how good is our detective. The great Sherlock Holmes understood everything, perhaps" a voice in the darkness of the corridor approaches and a figure appears on the door.  
"Welcome Robert, I was waiting for you" Sherlock tells him, not at all surprised to see him.  
Irene closes her eyes and now understands what was escaping her. True sadists always have a double life and very well hidden, of which nobody in the world, except their victims, knows something.

John for his part is so surprised that he can’t say a word.

Robert Evans enters slowly into the room and, after having turned on the light and blocked with his presence any eventual escape, he looks with scorn, not at all hidden, the man who has ruined his life.  
"And so, Sherlock Holmes, when did you realize that I was behind all this? Please enlighten us with your amazing intelligence"  
Sherlock stands motionless in the center of the room, on his right John and on his left Irene. He should have foreseen that neither of them would have left him, but he hoped to keep them busy in their fiction while he waited here to face Robert. He glimpsed the handle of the gun sticking out from the belt on the back of the front man and decides in an instant which strategy to use.

"I'm sorry to have caused you damage in the past Robert, it was not my intention, I'm sure you would have found that boy too if they had not called me" he says calmly, avoiding to answer his first question carefully. Telling him how he observed him attentively as they looked at the corpses at the morgue, how he noticed the slight dilatation of the pupils while he was lingering on the wounds, a symptom of inner pleasure, would certainly irritate him and he doesn’t want this. It was from then on, that he began to understand that something was wrong with Robert, and his suspicions increased during the day he spent with the labs, watching Robert fix his gaze on the materials and equipment in the same way he had looked at the bodies. Anyone else would have noticed only a scrupulous detective, but to him those nuances could not escape. It was from that moment that he investigated on his own, also reconstructing the two cases that Robert seemed to have brilliantly completed in the last few months, but that it must have been his work, perhaps only a test for the great massacre, as he later concluded. Robert had the skills and opportunities necessary to create false evidence in previous cases, to disable security systems and cameras in the neighborhood, as he had probably just done to enter the villa without being seen. He had those minimal medical skills, after years of witnessing thousands of autopsies, to take away the poor woman's heart. And he had a target to hit, him, Sherlock Holmes, the man who had ruined him years before, relegating him to paperwork. In that list of four names, buyers of that particular leather garment, there was one out of place, as Irene had pointed out to him, someone she did not believe could even use it. Robert had probably made the buyer turn out to be Mark Landon, to stay out of suspicion. But he had not foreseen Irene and his knowledge of those men. And it was that last detail that had given Sherlock the full picture. At that moment he understood everything.

Now he looks at him, hoping to keep him good, trying not to provoke him. The presence of John and Irene puts him in tension but he tries to maintain the maximum of lucidity.  
"Here you see, this is what will now be your end Sherlock" Robert's voice is a hoarse whisper full of rage and anger but also of intimate satisfaction "your feelings Sherlock will be your end, because you see, when I met you, you were an arrogant bastard full of himself but so cold and shiny that nothing escaped you. Now instead you have feelings... and they will be your end... you have not even understood yet that it was all finalized to get to this moment" he says, extracting in a moment the gun that was behind the back and at the same time also the one at the back inside of the holster in the jacket. The two guns now point one on John and one on Irene. In the room there is a silence full of electricity, where it seems that not even one of them breathes.  
Sherlock just slammed his eyes in surprise.  
"Oh yes... yes... exactly Sherlock... now you understand... it's true, I wanted to hit you. I tried to get your attention in the last few months with murders, they were not tests like you must have imagined, they were pitfalls I tried to put, but they were not to your height, I had to aim higher, it had to be something striking... and it was so, isn’t it?" Robert speaks, without the guns moving an inch from their trajectories.

John and Irene are motionless, barely breathe and both with just the corner of the eye look to Sherlock in the middle, trying to figure out how to get out of that damn situation.  
"You know, I thought I just had to make sure to attract you and your best friend, your conscience, your soul... and pull the trigger on him to let you live to cry for him for the rest of your days… but oh... you still surprise me and here you bring your heart on a silver plate. I could not believe the luck I had... and you know, it was not so difficult to make sure you have all three here now... because I knew that they would not leave you alone... I understood... so as you can see now, the feelings will be your end"

"It doesn’t have to end up like that Robert, you're still in time to go back, you have a wife and two children, think of them. You can always leave us locked up here but live and run away with them, change your life altogether, but if you kill someone in this room for you it will be the definitive end and you will not be able to save them from shame either" Sherlock still tries to make him think, while knowing it’s impossible, as slowly and imperceptibly he moves his hands slightly along his hips in a small gesture that he hopes both Irene and John will understand.  
"New life, but what new life?" Robert tells him, losing for a moment that apparent cold calm "you ruined it. See, working in the field allowed me to satisfy these fantasies without having to create them. When I came home I could kiss my wife and my children feeling serene, but you... you had to show your superior intelligence and ruin my career and life. When they relegated me to the office, I had no way to curb these impulses. Do you think these are the first killings? For two years I have been spreading among toxic bums and prostitutes, of which no one is interested. No, this theater I put on just for your benefit and now I want to enjoy the scene Sherlock Holmes. Who will you choose among them? Because you can try to save only one. Who will you choose... your soul or your heart? And do you know one thing? Even if you had to save one of the two, you will spend the rest of your life with so many guilt feelings for letting the other die, that not even the presence of those you saved will make you rise from the hell of your feelings. Goodbye Mr. Holmes... it was not a pleasure to meet you"

Robert seems now emptied of everything after talking and without adding anything, he presses at the same time the triggers of both guns.

The shots are deafening and for Sherlock time seems to stop. As the man spoke he had calculated the speed and trajectory of both guns, the weight of John and Irene, their distance from him, the speed with which the bullets would arrive at their targets. In a second, he spreads his hands hoping that the two friends understood his gestures as before.

John and Irene at the same time stretch their hands towards him. Sherlock grabs them by forcefully pulling the two towards the center and at the same time, calculating the lesser weight of Irene, he pulls her back and moves to John.

The bullet aimed at Irene barely touches her shoulder as she falls to the side. The one directed towards John, who would have centered in full the friend, takes in full chest Sherlock, who remains for a second stop before falling backwards.

The scream of Irene and John is almost in unison as Robert, surprised by those movements, who becomes a fury because his plan to see him suffer for the rest of his days is jumping. Approaching a step again he points the guns on John and Irene, but at that moment from behind Greg Lestrade emerges, along with two other agents, jumps on him and disarms him, preventing Robert from firing again.

The roar of rage of Robert Evans as he is stuck to the ground doesn’t exceed that of Irene, now bent on the body of Sherlock, from whose chest copiously flows blood. Kneeling to his left instinctively she presses her hands on his wound, to try to block the blood.

John, who had fallen, gets up quickly, approaching his friend, while he shouts to Greg to call an ambulance. It's a bad wound, in the chest, as it had already happened in the past but this seems worse. When Mary had shot him, she had made sure to hurt him without causing damage, this time it is not.

Sherlock blinks, taking Irene's hand, pressing on his wound and John's hand on the other.  
"I... I couldn’t choose... I... I could never have done that" he whispers breathlessly, feeling the excruciating pain in his chest and the breath that breaks.  
"Shut up Sherlock... do not talk... now we take you to the hospital... everything will be fine" the voice is John's but it’s not at all calm and convincing.  
"I... I don’t want to leave you... not now... I don’t want to" Sherlock watches both of them breathing hardly. At that moment Irene looks at him with an almost fierce look.  
"Don’t try. Did you understand Sherlock? Don’t even try to give up" she approaches him without leaving her hands held on his wound, trying not to see how they are now red with his blood "do what you want, invent one of your spells, enter your mental palace, but don’t even think for a second to leave us. You will not leave us. Because if you try Sherlock Holmes, I swear to you that wherever you go I will follow you and I will pay you bitterly" she says in a voice firm, determined, authoritarian as if she was giving an order which he just can’t disobey.

Sherlock glances at her eyes, barely shows a faint smile, then closes his eyes just nodding.  
"Okay" he says only and at that moment after a long breath he closes himself in his mental palace, trying to slow the heartbeats so that the body can slow down the consistent bleeding.

John looks at him first, then to her and nods. Calm him was the best solution possible and luckily Irene succeeded. He doesn’t know how she can be so cold right now, but thanks that's it.

After a while the paramedics arrive and within a few minutes tighten the wound of Sherlock, then placing it on the stretcher and quickly take him away, away from that place of unnecessary pain where Robert, lying on the ground blocked by the agents, still is screaming with rage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The final scene of this chapter is the scene on which I have based the whole story. I had this scene for months before even thinking about writing a story and I built the whole story thinking about how to get to this scene. I discovered later that it was the method used by Agatha Christie. Not that I want to compare with her, but certainly it’s a method that works and my best stories are born using this method. Think about where you want to get and build everything to get to that.


	19. Chapter 19

**London - University College Hospital – intensive care unit - 28 March 2018 - 1.40 a.m.**

The waiting rooms of a hospital in the intensive care unit are the place where despair and anxiety can sometimes be touched by hand. They create a thick blanket, like a fog that tightens the hearts and souls of those who wait to know if their life will still be the same.

It has been hours since Sherlock is in the operating room.

Mycroft arrived as soon as he heard about the shooting and now he walks back and forth, like a tiger ready to pounce on someone.

Molly, called by Greg, she also ran instantly, passing first to get Mrs. Hudson and now, sitting side by side, they holding their hands trying to get strength.

Greg arrived after he sent Evans to the police station and left instructions to the agents on the spot for case investigations. Now, standing near the door of the waiting room, he still cannot believe that, which he considered a colleague and a friend, was instead a maniac of that magnitude and that, because of him, Sherlock was now dying. Perhaps he could do something, understand something, move before and the thought now destroys him.

John, sitting next to Irene, is in such an anxiety that he can hardly breathe. He has already lost Mary and losing Sherlock too is something he could not recover from anymore. He wonders if his friend has thrown in front of him to pay him back for the death of Mary, who in turn had sacrificed her life to save that of Sherlock. Maybe he would have done it anyway, even if Mary had been alive. Now he would like her to be there to support him. He closes his eyes trying to hold back his tears and then turns to Irene, sitting next to him.

Irene has not said a word since they saw Sherlock take off the paramedics. She sat there motionless, her gaze cold and inscrutable. A nurse, hours ago, had approached her to wipe her hands, still dirty with Sherlock's blood, but her eyes were so fierce as to frighten her and let her some wipes on a nearby chair. Only after a long time Irene, looking at those hands, decided to clean them and did it with slow, careful gestures, almost as if she wanted to caress that blood.

Mycroft continues to walk like a beast and occasionally looks almost hatred towards Irene. He knew it was a mistake. Feelings make you weak and mentally less brilliant, leading you to commit false steps in which you can even lose your life. You become blackmailed, attackable by those who want to hurt you. But it was his fault if they met, the worst mistake he could ever make.

Everyone's thoughts fill that place with deafening silence, until the door of the operating room finally opens and two doctors come out of it. One of the two takes off the mask. His face is tired and destroyed by the hours spent in there. He sees people, family, friends perhaps, in the waiting room and with a sigh he enters.

"I'm the surgeon... who are the family members of Sherlock Holmes?" He asks, looking around. He knows the renowned detective and he has seen many photos of him. He recognizes Dr. Watson as well as Irene, but the practice wants him to ask in the first place for his family.

"I am his brother, but please speak" Mycroft says, not wanting to wait any more for a moment before knowing anything.

The doctor approaches Mycroft, whose side are now John and Irene, who got up as soon as they saw him enter.

"Yes... well... here... I think this chain is a gift from you Miss Adler" the doctor says looking at Irene and, opening his hand, he shows the medal of Sherlock, whose oval is now deformed even if the writing is still visible.

When Irene sees the medal, she loses her balance for a moment, but John at her side is ready to support her.

"Yes... yes... I gave it to him" she manages to say in a barely audible whisper, feeling her heart almost stop and a dull pain stun her.

The doctor opens her hand and hands her the gold chain.

"Well... now you will have to buy him a new one... this saved his life but he will not be able to wear it anymore. One inch further to the left and the bullet would hit his heart, it would have been impossible to save him" he smiles tiredly saying those words. Giving good news to those who waited in that room is the most beautiful moment, the one that repays him of the immense sacrifices and for of all the times he is forced to say that he did not make it, that he failed.

At his words, everyone in the room seem to resume breathing.

With a slight moan, Irene brings her hands to her face, spasmodically clutching the gold chain.

John at her side for the relief almost turns his head and returns to sit down thanking a thousand times that his friend had decided to wear it all the time.

Molly and Mrs. Hudson clench, bursting into tears of joy and Greg hugs them both, feeling a huge weight that finally fades from his heart.

Mycroft remains impassive, he was not aware that his brother was wearing that gift, and mentally thanks not to have known. He could have made fun of him and maybe convinced him not to wear it anymore.

"Now he sleeps. It was a difficult operation and he had lost so much blood but, luckily, he had to use meditation techniques to slow the heartbeat and so when he got here he was still in time. No major organ struck, but we had to give several internal points and suture a damaged artery. The bullet has cracked a rib so it will be a long convalescence. I hope you will get him to feel comfortable for a while and especially not to take any more bullets in his chest. The third could be really fatal for him" he said this and then greets everyone and leaves the room, thinking now only to the bed waiting for him and wishing to be able to sleep at least ten hours in a row.

When the door of the waiting room closes, no one can speak, they are still all dazed, each of them locked in their thoughts.

After a few minutes, Mycroft is the first to react.

"Well, it annoys me to say but apparently you saved my brother" he admits turning to Irene, who continues to hold tight in her hands that chain "now, I know that my presence will not be appreciated when he wakes up, and not wanting to shake him unnecessarily, it will be better that I go. It will be good that you go home all of you now, I do not think he will see many people when he wakes up. I will leave however to give free access to you two" he adds finally looking at both John and Irene "I hope to see you again on less dramatic occasions. Good night" and finished he turns without adding anything else, leaving the room with long and determined steps until he disappears inside the elevator at the end of the corridor.

Greg, Molly and Mrs. Hudson have now recovered and start collecting their coats.

Sitting John still feels dizzy.

Irene turns to him and looks at him.

"Come on John let's move. We have to go and get changed and then come back here" Irene's voice is calm now, as if she had regained control.

John looks up at her and wonders where she finds all that strength but he nods.

"Yes... you're right... we can’t stay in this state" he indicates her clothes as his driver's uniform, soiled with blood and dirt that was on the floor of that damn room. He gets up trying to find the strength in his legs and approaches Irene.

"Let's go then. We go first to me, then to your home and then we come back here, so I would not be able to sleep anyway until that wretch man wakes up. But then he hears me, he should not have thought of organizing that trap without telling us and thinking of doing everything by himself"

Irene listens to him and a slight smile escapes her.

"You're right, and he must even lose the habit of getting fired, this vice just have to take him away" she says, looking again at the medal contorted by the bullet in her hand "maybe I should buy him an armor and not a medal" she adds.

To her words John, Molly, Mrs. Hudson and Greg burst into a liberating laugh, which in a moment melts all the accumulated tension.

Irene smiles too, watching this strange and heterogeneous group of people, realizing that they are all very different from each other, but that unites them only one thing, the love for that man, the damned man that if someone now takes him away from her, it would be like they were ripping her heart out with their bare hands. The thought overwhelms her and she closes her eyes to try to maintain control again. This is not the moment. Not now. Now it is necessary to be strong, she repeats to herself like a mantra.

"Let's go then" she says finally, leaving the hospital almost reluctantly, as if this brief necessary separation was the hardest thing to do now.

 


	20. Chapter 20

**London - University College Hospital - intensive unit care – 28 March - 10.00 a.m.**

Locked up in his mental palace, Sherlock has relived everything that makes him happy and serene to keep his body in a state of calm and allow him to survive. He promised he would not leave them and he hates not keeping a promise. He spent hours remembering the laughter as a child, when he played with his best friend, avoiding indulging in the memory of how his sister made him fall into that water well where he found his end. In every room in his mental palace, he saw a memory that made him laugh or smile. John's bachelor party, which was the worst of the story probably, and all the laughs with him during their adventures. Rosie playing on the carpet of his house. Molly, who always knows how to read him inside and her tender friendship, Mrs. Hudson who he treats him like a son, Greg who always runs to his aid in any situation, his parents and even those rare moments when Mycroft has shown himself less odious than usual. And The Woman obviously, few but intense moments that made him enormously happy. Her captivating smile, their laughter amused under the sheets, when the passion had left them exhausted and satisfied. Her scent, which mixes with the smell of her skin becoming unmistakable, so intense that he feels it distinctly even in his mental palace, along with the warm and deep sound of her voice. A few very short intense moments, but he wants others, now he can no longer do without it. For this, he fought like a lion to survive. In that room with Irene's memories, he spent most of the time and still he is now there. Her voice warms his heart, her scent intoxicates him, her light giggles make him sigh, giving him a feeling of inner peace. But he cannot understand what she is saying now, she seems almost talking to John.

"Oh come on John please, you can’t write this"

Sherlock blinks and his mental palace fades. Slowly he focuses and realizes that he is staring at a white ceiling with a neon light now off because it must be morning. He moves his eyes just to the left, seeing the medical equipment connected to his body with the drip and electrodes, to measure the heartbeat and his vital functions. John's voice to his right draws his attention and very slowly he turns around. John and Irene are sitting beside the window. John has his laptop on his lap and both are busy reading something.

"Why should I not write it? It happened just like that" John says, without taking his eyes off the desktop. Irene at his side emits a slight snort.

"Yes, but you can’t describe him this way. Come on John, it's too mushy, please keep a little mystery, fans will appreciate it" she replies, then takes the laptop from his hands and resting on his legs, she writes something.

"Here, read now and see if it's not better" she says, returning the laptop to him.

John looks at her, narrowing his eyes as if he is vaguely irritated, then he reads again the piece that they have been writing about Robert's capture for a few hours.

"Damn it, you're right, it flows better like that" he admits reluctantly.

"I was sure" she tells him with a satisfied smile.

"Please, a blowhard in the family is enough" he replies, continuing to write and causing an amused giggle in Irene "what do you think of Black Heart as a title?"

"I think it’s right" she replies.

Sherlock watches them, nodding a smile. He knew they would like each other after all, and seeing them at that moment repays the pain he now begins to feel in the awakening body. For a moment, he thinks back to what has happened, to the danger they both have run, and a shiver of terror passes through him, but her laughter and his irony interrupt those terrible thoughts.

"I'm not a blowhard" he whispers in a hoarse voice "I'm only aware of my skills" he adds, smiling to both of them.

Hearing his voice, both John and Irene look up and in a few moments they get up and approach the bed. John, put the laptop on the chair, stops at his right side while Irene turns on the other side of the bed, sitting on the edge.

"Hi sleepyhead... it was time for you to wake up" she tells him, taking his hand.

"How do you pass Sherlock? If you need something, just ask" John says.

"I feel like the whole service of royal order has marched on my body" Sherlock answers, beginning to recover a little voice “but otherwise good. I'm alive, it seems a good result" he tries to shake hands with Irene but does not have much strength yet.

"By miracle you are alive and you have to thank it, you know" John tells him, taking the cracked medal from the bedside table to show him "it seems that this saved your life"

Sherlock looks at it and, strangely, the first thought that comes to mind is that it's ruined. He turns to Irene, who almost seems to read his mind.

"I've already ordered a new one, don’t worry" she says smiling, caressing his hand that does not seem to want to leave.

"However Sherlock, next time, when you have a plan, try not to keep us in the dark. Face it alone was a bad idea" John tells him, placing the chain on the bedside table again.

"Yes, you're right, I should have known you would never be away. I put you in danger even if I really wanted the opposite. Luckily I had warned Greg to be ready to follow Robert as soon as he saw him move"

"Yes, he told me, he also told me about the hidden radio in the torch, with which you recorded his confession. By the way, both he and Molly are downstairs, I want to warn them that you woke up" he adds, checking that all the vital equipment and parameters are in place, before shaking his friend's hand hard and then leaving the room.

Sherlock returns now to look at Irene. Her face is serene but at the same time appears tense and tired. He looks her in the eyes until she looks away.

"How are you?" He asks her without stopping to stare at her.

"You're the one who got a bullet, you know" she replies, returning to look at him with a vaguely ironic smile.

"You know what I mean, how are you, Irene?" He asks her again in a calm tone.

Irene sighs, looking away again, as if she could not hold his gaze.

"Let's say, I've really had a bad time" she says, staring now at the drip attached to his arm.

Sherlock watches her without speaking for a few minutes.

"I know exactly what you've tried, you know, because I tried it at that moment that I saw Robert shoot and I did not know if I could save you" he whispers tenderly with just holding his hand "but we're alive... we're here... only this is important" he adds smiling,

Irene returns to look at him in those clear eyes that always seem to read her inside.

"Maybe that madman was right in one thing. Feelings make us weaker, less lucid" she says with a sigh, even though she knows that she can’t do without those feelings.

"You're wrong, he was totally wrong instead. Feelings have made me stronger. If I were still the man of a few years ago, I would have faced him with greater pride. I would have provoked him and maybe he would have fired first, preventing Greg from arriving in time before he fired again. Maybe, I would not even call Greg, thinking I could do it all by myself" he says calmly, smiling at her before grimacing in pain in an attempt to get up a little.

"Stay still, be good, you have a cracked rib and a bad wound. You'll have to stay calm for a while" she tells him, bending over to better arrange his pillows.

"I see... and you will be my nurse? It could be very interesting" he now says with an amused smile.

"Sherlock Holmes forget it. I will not spend the next few months to be your nurse, this will remain exclusively your dream" she tells him, arching an eyebrow.

"Too bad, I bet a nurse's uniform suits you" he adds with an amused tone.

"If you do not stop, I'll stop the morphine... and I'm not joking" Irene replies with an ironic smile.

"Cruel woman, you have no mercy on me" he tells her, before starting both to laugh and in that liberating laughter their eyes meet again and intertwine, as in a tight and elegant dance, like that knot of Solomon still kept in that drawer of 221B Baker Street.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we are. If you have come to read up here, I presume you enjoyed it, despite my certainly not perfect English.  
> This however is a path and it is only the beginning. If you're curious about what else is going to happen and how Sherlock, John and Irene's life will proceed, if you want to meet new characters, which will be part of their lives, then all you have to do is read the next five long stories, plus three shots, which I will shortly begin to translate.  
> If you have comments to make, for better or for worse, write as well.  
> The only thing I know is that for me now it is a disease, a powerful drug. Sharing these stories with those who have the same passion as me, is what gives meaning to the hours of sleep lost to write these fic and translate them.  
> See you next time!


End file.
